ROSEVILLE — Competing in the strongest section in the state, Stillwater was able to succesfully navigate the first two rounds while advancing to the winners bracket finals in the Section 4AAAA baseball tournament.
The top-seeded Ponies (17-5) opened with a comfortable victory over St. Paul Central — the only quarterfinal game decided by more than a single run — and followed with a 5-2 victory over fifth-seeded White Bear Lake on Wednesday, May 29 at the University of Northwestern.
The Bears (13-9) defeated fourth-seeded Woodbury (12-10) in extra innings to advance, but Stillwater sent them to the losers bracket. White Bear Lake split with the Ponies during the regular season.
Stillwater advances to face No. 2 seed East Ridge (16-6), a 3-0 semifinal winner over third-seeded Cretin-Derham Hall (14-8) in the winners bracket finals on May 31.
East Ridge and Cretin-Derham Hall both prevailed with 1-0 victories over Tartan and Roseville in the opening round, showing depth in a section that is notably strong at the top.
After the Bears had a runner thrown out at the plate in the top of the first, the Ponies jumped out with a run in the bottom of the inning on a single to center by Charley Rowan to score AJ Levy, who started with a lead-off double.
White Bear Lake moved in front with two runs in the fourth, but the Ponies respond with two runs in the bottom half. Levy’s RBI single to center put Stillwater in front 3-2 and they tacked on two more runs in the fifth.
Owen Maslowski and Jack Runk each singled home runs in the fifth to push Stillwater’s lead to 5-2.
Dylan Bloom started for the Ponies and allowed five hits and two runs with four walks and five strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings. Alex Oehlke walked two, but did not allow and hit and finished with one strikeout in 2 1/3 innings.
Levy paced the Ponies with three hits.
WBL 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 — 2 5 2
Still 1 0 0 2 2 0 x — 5 10 1
WP: Dylan Bloom 4 2/3-ip, 5-h, 2-r, 2-er, 4-bb, 5-so
LP: Evan Newlander 5-ip, 8-h, 5-r, 2-er, 1-bb, 3-so
Leading hitters: WBL, Blake Eckerle 2x3 (2B, RBI), Isaiah Weber 1x2 and Johnny Wong 2x3 (2B, RBI); St, AJ Levy 3x4 (2B, RBI), Luke Adams 1x4, Charley Rowan 1x4 (RBI), Blake Vanek 1x3, Owen Maslowski 1x3, Jack Runk 2x3 (RBI) and Pat Lundgren 1x3.
Stillwater 15, Central 1 (5)
At Oak Park Heights, the Ponies were the only opening-round winners who didn’t have to sweat out a tightly-contested game while defeating St. Paul Central 15-1 in five innings on Tuesday, May 28 at Stillwater Area High School.
The game was originally scheduled for Northwestern on Monday, but the opening-round contests were postponed due to the potential for storms and hosted by the higher seeds the following day.
Central (8-12) opened the scoring with a run in the first, but the Ponies charged back with five runs in the bottom half and 15 unanswered runs overall.
It was a balanced attack for the Ponies, who had seven players collect at least one RBI.
AJ Levy doubled and tripled while Pat Lundgren joined him with two hits.
Alex Boston threw four innings and did not allow an earned run. He gave up just two hits and two walks with eight strikeouts before Emmitt Campbell threw a hitless fifth.
SP Central 1 0 0 0 0 — 1 2 2
Stillwater 5 2 3 5 x — 15 10 1
WP: Alex Boston 4-ip, 2-h, 1-r, 0-er, 2-bb, 8-so
LP: Kieran Hayes 3-ip, 7-h, 10-r, 9-er, 7-bb, 2-so
Leading hitters: SPC, Ademola Adedigba 1x3 and Cooper Entenman 1x2 (RBI); St, AJ Levy 2x2 (2B, 3B, RBI), Jack Runk 1x3 (2 RBI), Charley Rowan 0x1 (3 BB, 2 RBI), Owen Maslowski 1x3 (2B, RBI), Blake Vanek 1x2 (RBI), Joe Fredkove 1x2, Boston 1x2 (3B, 2 RBI), Ty Schroeder 1x1 and Pat Lundgren 2x2 (2B, 2 RBI).
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