The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Carrington Post 25 Redbirds celebrate with the traditional "dog pile" at the pitcher's mound following the final out of their 10-0 win over Kidder County Post 231 at the District 4 Tournament at Jack Brown Stadium in Jamestown. Kidder County extended the championship to two games with a 3-0 win over the Redbirds in the first title matchup, forcing the winner-take-all second game. Post 25 began play at the State Class B Tournament in Garrison last Wednesday, when they faced Langdon Post 98 in the opening round.
Grady Shipman flashes the leather at shortstop, making an off-balance throw to make the putout on a Kidder County baserunner before he reaches first base. Shipman started both halves of the championship series on the mound, throwing three innings and taking the loss in game one, but coming back to shut down Post 231 in the finale with four hitless frames before hitting his pitch limit.
Owen Hagel came on strong towards the end of the season as a presence in the bottom of the Post 25 lineup, and had a hit and RBI in the second championship game.
Trent Ekren proved very valuable as an innings-eater in the championship series to save Grady Shipman from throwing more pitches than he needed to. In his two combined appearances, all coming in relief of Shipman, he threw seven innings of shutout baseball and gave up just one hit in those stints. The hit, from Kidder County's Isaiah Oster, came after the second game was well in Carrington's favor.
Courtesy runner Jake Otto leads off from first base.
Post 25 team members posing with the District 4 championship plaque are, front row (L-R): Jake Otto, Jacob Rexin, Noah Paulson, Corbin Clifton, Kael Kovar, Grady Shipman and Trent Ekren. Back row: Head Coach Tim Ranum, Ryder Bickett, Josh Bickett, Owen Hagel, Lucas Hendrickson, Hudson Schmitz, Jack Erickson, Brock Fike and Kyle Johnson.
Don't let that barely-above .500 record fool you.
It took most of the season for the Carrington John Raymond O'Hara Post 25 Redbirds to figure out their roles, and how they would translate to yet another State "B" American Legion Tournament appearance.
Once everything started clicking, however, it did so in a big way.
For the eighth time in nine seasons, Post 25 is headed back to the "B" with a 10-0 win in the District 4 championship over Kidder County Post 231 Thursday night, July 21, at Jamestown's Jack Brown Stadium.
It was the second championship game following a 3-0 shutout win by the 231's in the opener, but Coach Tim Ranum's team had a bit of an advantage with the pitchers and pitch counts they had remaining.
"Since July 4, we've been playing good baseball," said Ranum. We were a little up and down, but the past two weeks, we finally established a pretty solid defensive lineup, and had an excellent tournament."
The Redbirds turned to Grady Shipman on the mound for game one. Kidder County took advantage of a defensive lapse in the first inning, when heads-up baserunning by Post 231's Colin Zimmerman allowed him to score all the way from second base on a Shipman wild pitch.
Kidder County added two more runs in the top of the third on an RBI double by Jayden Rath to score Donny Martin, and Blake Braun singled home Rath with the third run to make it 3-0. Those were the only two hits for Post 231 in the first contest, and would be the only offense Kidder would muster for the rest of the game.
To conserve him for the second contest, Shipman was pulled by Ranum in favor of Trent Ekren.
That move paid off in spades, as Ekren threw four shutout innings with no hits.
"In the tournament, all our starting pitchers had tremendous outings," said Ranum. "Kael Kovar started with five no-hit innings, then Hudson Schmitz threw a complete game one-hitter, Lucas Hendrickson gave up only two runs in a complete game as well, along with what Grady and Trent did."
Post 25 had five hits in game one, with Schmitz getting two of them. The other three came from Hendrickson, Ekren and Jack Erickson.
Braun, one of Kidder County's top hurlers, threw for 3 2/3 innings until he hit his 135-pitch tourney limit, giving way to Jace Larson.
Game two, played under gradually darkening skies, started eerily similar to the game earlier in the tournament against Kidder County with an early big Carrington lead, 3-0, in the first inning.
This time around, it was less self-inflicted mistakes by the 231's and more the Redbirds setting the tone early. Following a leadoff walk, Erickson would steal second, and score on a Schmitz RBI single. Hendrickson would follow with another hit, and later scored on Owen Hagel's groundout.
Schmitz got the 'Birds back on the board in the third with a towering home run that cleared the deepest part of the ballpark, according to Ranum. Later that inning, Corbin Clifton, a late season call-up from the Babe Ruth ranks, served a soft single over the head of first baseman Isaiah Oster in right to make it 5-0.
Kyle Johnson would score an unearned run in the fourth off the bat of Schmitz. Three innings later, Schmitz got his third hit and third and fourth RBIs of the night.
Clifton would have an RBI sacrifice fly, and Erickson drove in another run in the seventh with a single.
"We aren't blessed with an entire lineup of guys who rip the ball all over the yard," said Ranum, "so we just pride ourselves in giving quality at-bats and forcing pitchers to throw strikes while trying to hit their mistakes."
Again, it was the Shipman and Ekren show on the mound, and Ekren gave up the lone blemish, a hit to Oster.
Ranum cited the emergence of several young players in the lineup, including Hagel, Johnson, Clifton and others, to allow the interior defense to take shape.
"Kyle basically won a spot at third for us, which allowed us to keep Grady and Hudson at short, and move Kael to second. Combined with Jack, that's probably the best infield we've had in several years."
Hendrickson had two hits in the championship as well.
Post 25 started play Wednesday in Garrison against the Langdon Post 98 Red Sox. That game was in progress as the Independent went to press.
Other first round games included Mayville taking on Cando, and Hazen facing Renville County. In the nightcap, LaMoure, one of the pre-tourney favorites, tangled with host Garrison.
"Langdon is a strong team with a lot of experience," said Ranum. "Obviously, LaMoure is also extremely talented and versatile, and Mayville will also be tough."
"If we play as well as we did at districts, I think we have a chance to advance to the final day," he concluded.
(NOTE: In the print edition, Langdon was listed as Post 89. It has been corrected to the proper post number here.)
District 4 American Legion
Baseball Tournament, Jamestown
Championship Game #1
Kidder Co. 3, Carrington 0
KC 102 000 0 - 3 2 1
Cgtn. 000 000 0 - 0 5 1
Grady Shipman, Trent Ekren (4) and Lucas Hendrickson, Hudson Schmitz (5); Blake Braun, Jace Larson (4) and Colin Zimmerman. W - Braun. L - Shipman. SV - Larson.
Carrington: Schmitz 2-3; Hendrickson 1-2; Ekren 4 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 2 K; 1-3; Jack Erickson 1-3, SB; Ryder Bickett SB.
Kidder Co.: Braun 3 2/3 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 K; 1-3, RBI; Jayden Rath 1-3, double, run, RBI; Zimmerman and Donny Martin one run each; Simon Hager SB.
Championship Game #2
Carrington 10, Kidder Co. 0
Cgtn. 302 100 4 - 10 10 0
KC 000 000 0 - 0 1 6
Shipman, Ekren (5) and Corbin Clifton, Schmitz (5); Larson, Grant Pfaff (3) and Zimmerman. W - Shipman. L - Larson.
Carrington: Shipman 4 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 3 K; 1-5, run; Ekren 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, BB, K; run; Schmitz 3-5, HR, 2 runs, 4 RBI; Hendrickson 2-5, SB, run; Clifton 1-3, 2 RBI; Kael Kovar 1-3, SB, run; Erickson 1-4, SB, 2 runs, RBI; Owen Hagel 1-4, RBI; Kyle Johnson and Bickett one run each.
Kidder Co.: Isaiah Oster 1-2, double, walk; Patrick Pechtel SB; Hager 2 walks; Zimmerman walk.
