The Faribault VFW baseball team’s season came to a close last weekend in the playoffs as they traveled to Northfield and played three games, winning one.
Their first game was against Albert Lea, which they won 5-2 on Saturday. They then faced off against an undefeated Northfield team, losing 13-3. They had another chance to face off against Northfield if they won against Albert Lea in a rematch, but they lost 11-2, ending their season.
Faribault entered the postseason with a 10-8 record and coming off a five-game winning streak. For the first weekend of the VFW playoffs, they were placed in a tournament section with Northfield, Albert Lea, and Waseca, with one team out of the four advancing to the next stage of the playoffs. All games were played at Northfield.
In Faribault’s first game against Albert Lea, the first two innings were scoreless until Albert Lea scored in the top of the third. Faribault answered with three runs of their own in the bottom of the third. Mav Gordon scored in Dom Erickson to tie the game up and Gavin Erickson scored off of a groundout by Carter Quinlan. Hayden Dillon then singled to score Gordon to take a 3-1 lead over Albert Lea.
Albert Lea scored a run in the sixth inning to make it a 3-2 game, but Faribault added two points to their lead in their half of the inning.
Atley Qualey was the starting pitcher for Faribault, going six innings and allowing two runs and four hits. Dom Erickson came into the game for Faribault in the seventh inning and closed out the 5-2 win.
Dom Erickson had a stellar game as he went 3-4 and scored two times in the affair. Hayden Dillon also had three hits, going 3-3 with an RBI.
Since they won against Albert Lea, they faced off against Northfield on Saturday as Northfield won against Waseca. Faribault struck first as Gavin Erickson scored off of a single by Mav Gordon to take a 1-0 lead over Northfield.
But the lead did not last long as Northfield scored four runs in the bottom of the first. Faribault cut Northfield’s lead to just one by scoring two runs in the second inning, but those were their last runs they were able to score in the game.
Northfield scored another four runs in the second and then scored three runs in the third to take an 11-3 lead at the end of the three innings. After a scoreless fourth inning, Northfield scored one in the fifth and another run in the sixth to make the score 13-3 and end the game early in six innings.
Errors were costly for Faribault’s defense as they committed five of them. Carter Quinlan was the starting pitcher for Faribault, going four innings and giving up 11 runs but only 3 of them were earned. Offensively, Mav Gordon got on base three times, going 1-1 with an RBI and two walks.
Since Albert Lea won their matchup against Waseca, Waseca was eliminated from the playoffs on Saturday as Faribault faced Albert Lea once again on Sunday. The winner would face off against Northfield once again.
Things looked good for Faribault as they took a 2-0 lead in the second inning after going on a two-out rally. Atley Qualey reached first base after being hit by a pitch and Harley Llamas singled right after. Dom Erickson then singled to left, allowing Qualey and Llamas to score.
Albert Lea scored in the top of the fourth, but Faribault maintained their lead until the end of the fifth inning. The sixth inning went downhill for Faribault, as Albert Lea scored six runs in the inning and added another four runs in the seventh inning to take a commanding 11-2 lead. Faribault was unable to score in the bottom of the seventh, losing to Albert Lea 11-2.
The loss ended Faribault’s season, as Albert Lea went on to face Northfield, but Northfield won and was the only team of the four to move on in the playoffs. Northfield remained undefeated after the weekend with a 20-0 record.
Faribault ended their season over .500 with an 11-10 record and going 1-2 in the playoffs.
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