The Lake City Serpents and Red Wing Aces picked up 3-1 and 15-4 wins Sunday and punched their tickets to the State Amateur Baseball Tournament.  Lake City beat Cannon Falls and Red Wing rolled over Wanamingo.  The games were played at Dartts Park in Owatonna. Red Wing and Lake City play for the title Saturday at 4:00 p.m. in Owatonna.  The winner gets a bye the first round of State and the loser is the number two seed.  One other team will get to go to State from Region 5C.

Cannon Falls had a 1-0 lead in the third inning when number eight hitter Zeke Williams opened the inning with a single during a nine pitch at bat followed by a Alex Tauer double during an eleven pitch at bat to place runners at second and third with no outs.  Brock Peterson picked up an RBI while grounding out to short and the inning ended with another ground out to shortstop.

Lake City took the lead in the fifth inning on a two out two run home run by number eight hitter in the order Zach Wolfe.  With two outs Hunter Baab collected a single on a 1-2 count.  Wolfe worked the count full against Bears starter Jared Woodward and on the ninth pitch of the at bat hit a no doubter over the left field fence onto the parking lot.

Csnnon Falls ace Keith Meyers came on in relief in the sixth inning following back to back singles to start the inning and gave up a run in the bottom of the eighth inning.  Matt Miller smacked a one out single to right.  Austin Baab hit a grounder to short and beat out a double play throw.  Jacob Duden picked up an RBI single on a 3-1 count and Lake City picked up the win over a Cannon Falls team they split with during the regular season.

Region 5C has 16 teams in their tournament with four from the Classic Cannon Valley League and the remaining out of the Twin Rivers Conference.

Cannon Falls had their chances in the game but thanks to some outstanding defensive plays by Lake City were held to the one run.  The Bears had a lead-off single in the fourth inning, lead walk in the fifth inning, lead walk in the seventh inning and lead single in the ninth inning and didn't score.

Left fielder Logan Thomas made two outstanding running catches in left field and John Brown had a couple great running catches in center field for the Serpents.

Left handed pitcher Kyle Sursely got the win and Zach Wolfe picked up a save after three scoreless innings for Lake City.  Sursely had thrown 93 pitches in his six innings of work, 63 for strikes and only allowed one inning with multiple hits.  Wolfe closed the door with three innings of one hit ball and started a nifty 1-6-3 double play in the ninth inning.  Wolfe was 3 of 10 in firsts pitch strikes and Sursely 19 of 26.

Right handed starter Jared Woodward got the hard luck loss while tossing the first 5 plus innings for the Cannon Falls Bears.  Woodward threw 68 pitches, 50 for strikes and Meyers tossed 36 pitches over three innings, 26 for strikes.  Woodward was 14 of 21 in first pitch strikes and Meyers 10 of 16.

There were no errors in the two hour game.  Lake City is now 9-9 and Cannon Falls fell to 12-14 on the season.

The Bears play Owatonna in an elimination bracket game Saturday at 10:00 a.m. in Owatonna.  The Aces defeated the Dodge County Diamondbacks 5-3 in the first game Sunday.

The Wanamingo Jacks committed four errors in the first two innings and were down 5-0 before scoring their first run in the second inning against the Red Wing Aces.  Red Wing was a Class B team and moved to Class C this season with Hampton going up to Class B.  The Aces scored in all but two innings against the Jacks.

Wanamingo finished with 7 errors in the 15-4 loss.

Sam Roosen started the game for the Jacks and went the first two innings.  None of the five innings allowed were earned.  Roosen threw 40 pitches, 31 for strikes.  Struck out one batter and walked none.  He allowed 5 hits.  Four in the first inning coupled with two errors led to the four run inning to start the game for Red Wing.

Wanamingo used five pitchers in the game and we won't run down all the pitching totals for the Jacks in the contest but will tell you they combined to throw 190 pitches, walked seven batters and hit two.  My scorebook had 12 Lake City hits and 10 for Wanamingo.

The highlight of the game for Wanamingo fans was a solo one out no doubt home run off the bat of Eric Swiggum in the fifth inning.  Alex Roosen delivered a one out two run double in the seventh inning.  The Jacks first run in the second inning came on a RBI single by Andrew Anfinson scoring Matt Houglum.  Houglum, Sean Wingfield and Andrew Anfinson had three one out singles.

Two Red Wing pitchers combined to strike out eleven Wanamingo batters.

The Jacks are 16-11 and play the winner of the Rochester Roadrunners against Stewartville/Racine Sharks game Saturday at 1:00 p.m. in Owatonna in an elimination bracket game. The Rochester/Stewartville contest was postponed Sunday and will be played 7:30 Monday night at Dartts park.

The winners of the Owatonna/Cannon Falls and Wanamingo against whomever game will have a state qualifying game at 7:00 p.m. Saturday and if Wanmingo or Cannon Falls are in that contest it will be on the radio.

Baseball in Glove- photo by Gordy Kosfeld
Baseball in Glove- photo by Gordy Kosfeld
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