The Northfield baseball team relied upon a five-run rally in the fifth inning to capture an 11-7 victory over Stewartville in the semifinals of the MSHSL Section 1AAA baseball tournament, which was played in Austin on Saturday, June 1.
The victory moved the No. 2 seeded Raiders into the championship game, which will take place on Wednesday, June 5 at Marcusen Park in Austin. The Raiders will once again face No. 1 seed Stewartville in the title game that will be played at 5 p.m.
Stewartville stayed alive in the double-elimination tournament with an 11-0 victory over Winona in the elimination bracket to set up the rematch with the Raiders. Northfield just needs to win one game on June 5 in order to claim the Section 1AAA championship and punch its ticket to the upcoming MSHSL Class AAA state tournament that will begin on June 13-14 with games at Chaska and Jordan. The final game in the tournament will then be played at Target Field in Minneapolis on June 17.
To gain its spot in the Section title game, Northfield opened the game on June 1 with three runs in the top of first inning that was sparked by a double from Austin Koep. Stewartville charged back with five runs in the bottom of the first inning to make it 5-3.
Northfield replied in the top of the second with one run only to have Stewartville add another run in the bottom of the second. In the third inning, Northfield added another run to narrow the gap to 6-5.
Stewartville’s final offensive push came with a solo run in the bottom of the fourth inning before the Raider defense shut down the Tigers. At the same time, Northfield’s offense took control of the game with five runs in the fifth inning that provided the Raiders with a 10-7 lead. A highlight during the rally was a two-run home run by Aaron Reisetter.
In the sixth inning, Northfield added an insurance run on a sacrifice fly by Kyan Rauk to push the final score to 11-7.
The Raiders outhit the Tigers 13-7 in the contest as JT Graupmann was the pitcher of record in the game with 4.0 innings of relief work that included five strikeouts, one hit allowed and no runs allowed.
Reisetter led Northfield’s offense with three hits including a home run and two RBIs, while Kam Kaiser and Ryan Cahoon each had two hits in the game. Seth Thompson added three runs along with two runs apiece from Jake Geiger and Tegan Mellgren.
“The guys did a great job of staying confident throughout the entire game. It was a back and forth game and even when we got down early the energy level stayed up and you could tell that they believed they could come back,” NHS coach Josh Spitzack said. “Our entire lineup had great at bats all game as everyone ended up with a hit and multiple guys scored runs or had RBI’s.”
He added, “The key for Wednesday (championship game against Stewartville) will be to continue to focus on what has helped get us to this point: bringing energy all game, having confidence, and playing for each other. We know it is a big game, but these guys have had the goal of getting to this point since we finished last season…so now it’s just about believing in each other that they can get it done.”
Early rounds
The No. 2 seeded Northfield High School baseball team (13-8) charted a 9-1 victory over No. 3 seed Byron on Tuesday, May 28 to advance to the semifinals of the 2024 MSHSL Section 1AAA tournament.
The victory sets up a showdown against No. 1 seed Stewartville in tournament play on Saturday, June 1 at Austin’s Marcusen Park. Stewartville punched its ticket to the semifinal game with a 9-1 win over Winona on May 28.
Teams still alive in the elimination bracket of the tournament include Faribault, which defeated Austin 5-1 on May 28, and Kasson-Mantorville, which beat Red Wing by a 9-2 tally. Games in the elimination bracket scheduled for May 30 include Faribault at Winona and Kasson-Mantorville at Byron.
The elimination bracket games will conclude on June 1, with the winner of that bracket facing the winner of the game between Northfield and Stewartville in the title game on June 5 in Austin. The winner of the elimination bracket will have to win twice in the finals, while the winner of the winner’s bracket just needs one victory.
The section tournament champion will then advance to the 2024 MSHSL Class AAA championship tournament on June 13-14 and 17.
At Memorial Field in Dundas on May 28, Northfield saw Byron take a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning but that proved to be the extend of the Bears’ offensive effort as Raider pitcher Tegan Mellgren went on to pitch six scoreless inning to gain the victory with just four hits allowed and seven strikeouts to his credit.
“Pitching wise, our guys have given us the chance to win all year but this was a big performance by Tegan today, just stepping up,” NHS coach Josh Spitzack said. “He wanted the ball today and it was fun to watch.”
In addition to the solid work of Mellgren on the mound, Northfield’s defense was stellar with no errors allowed in the game. The combination of quality pitching and strong play in the field proved to be a winning combination in shutting down Byron.
“As a pitcher knowing that you have good d (defense) behind you is huge. You can have the confidence out there like Tegan had when guys are making the plays behind him. We’ve had a couple good games here with defense making the plays, so that is going to be key if we can keep that going,” Spitzack said.
Northfield’s offense started to roll in the first inning as Mellgren walked. His courtesy runner Jack Pribyl then advanced to second on a single by Kam Kaiser and went to third after Austin Koep was hit by a pitch. Primly then scored the game’s first run thanks to a wild pitch by Byron’s Aidan Gross.
The Raiders pushed their lead to 2-1 thanks to a double by Seth Thompson that scored Kaiser. To round out the rally, Koep went on to score thanks to an RBI by Aaron Reisetter to make the score 3-1.
After two scoreless innings, Northfield added two runs in the fourth inning that was started with a hit by pitch to Reisetter. His courtesy runner Dylan Morrow then moved to third on a single by Kyan Rauk and he later scored on an RBI by Ryan Cahoon. Logan Prescott, who was pinch running for Rauk, then took third on a stolen base and came home when the throw down attempt by Byron went into left field.
In the fifth inning, Northfield scored three more runs with a two-out rally that started with a single by Kaiser. A double by Koep scored Kaiser and that was followed by an RBI single off the bat of Thompson that scored Koep and a double by Reisetter that scored pinch runner Gabe Heinritz.
The Raiders’ base running prowess added another run in the sixth inning as Jake Geiger singled and then advanced on stolen bases to third. He later scored on a double steal play that saw Pribyl take second while Geiger scored after the Byron throw down to second went into centerfield.
In the game, Northfield outhit the Bears 7-4 as Thompson led the Raiders with two hits and two RBIs. Geiger, Kaiser, Koep, Reisetter and Rauk all had one hit for NHS. The Raiders also had four stolen bases in the game.
Spitzack added his insight into Northfield’s ability to create runs against Byron.
“We got some key hits during the game and when we didn’t get the hit, we put the ball into play to score some runs and those runs can really come back and be big,” Spitzack said. “We had some guys who were aggressive on the base paths and we were able to steal a couple of runs there and we got the hits when we needed them.”
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