Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Sox defeat Lakers in 11 innings, fall to Tommies, Squirrels
The SNR Black Sox team. Back row (left to right): Assistant Coach Lucas Weisenburger, Layton Jacobson, Bradyn Collier, Brody Weisenburger, Alex Weisenburger, Easton Simon, Easton Benz, Head Coach Dave Skogen. Middle row: Thomas Allmaras, Lucas Yri, Connor Knatterud, Keaton Cudworth, Skye Kramlich, Dashyl Bichler. Front row: Kason Nass, Alex Knatterud, Jaxon Simon, Bat Boy Jack Skogen, Austin Weisenburger, Dustin Nystrom.
SNR senior Luke Yri takes a crack at a low pitch during the third-place game against the Central Cass Squirrels.
SNR senior Keaton Cudworth pitched seven of 11 innings against the Des-Lacs Burlington Lakers on Thursday, May 30. Cudworth allowed only four hits with zero errors and four strikeouts.
The little Feller who couldn't. SNR short stop Thomas Allmaras tags out Des-Lacs Burlington's Colton Feller as he attempted to get out of a pickle and make it to third base.
Alex Knatterud (left) and Easton Benz (right) were among many of the SNR Black Sox players to put on extra eye black.
The three Sheyenne-New Rockford Black Sox seniors – Luke Yri, Connor Knatterud and Keaton Cudworth – posed for a quick photo after taking fourth place at the Class B State Baseball Tournament in Jamestown over May 30-June 1.
Brody Weisenburger attempts to pick off Des-Lacs Burlington senior Paxton Ystaas.
Eden Weisenburger cheered on her brother Alex Weisenburger at the state baseball tournament with her "Go Black Sox" sign.
The SNR Black Sox had many fans filling the stands of the Jack Brown Stadium throughout the three days of the state tournament. From left to right: Camebria Engels, Ava Bullinger, Alivia Yri, Jaida Schumacher and Kaci Weisenburger were just five of the many fans who cheered on the Black Sox.
The Sheyenne-New Rockford Black Sox have finished their spring season with a fourth place finish at their first state tournament appearance in 24 years.
Many weren't sure how the Sox would fare after such a strong performance at the Region III Tournament, where they were largely dominant en route to a region championship.
Were SNR really among the top eight teams in the state, or did they just happen to have a good few games that weekend?
Well, they certainly answered that question with their performance at the state tournament, particularly in their quarterfinal matchup against the Des-Lacs Burlington Lakers on Thursday, May 30.
Taking place at Jack Brown Stadium in Jamestown, N.D., that quarterfinal game was one of, if not the best game of the entire Class B State Baseball Tournament, as both teams battled it out in an 11-inning marathon of a game.
Starting on the mound for SNR was senior Keaton Cudworth, and as the Sox have come to expect from their southpaw ace, he once again delivered a great performance.
And it was a necessary one too, as it soon became clear that the story of this quarterfinal would be one of excellent pitching, good defense, and little-to-no offense.
The first couple of innings were scoreless as both offenses left runners on base, but eventually it was the Lakers who put points on the board first.
In the bottom of the third inning, a defensive error committed by the Sox allowed two Lakers' runners to cross home plate for a pair of unearned runs, and although SNR wouldn't allow another run the rest of the day, that slim lead began to appear larger and larger as the game dragged on.
It wasn't until the top of the sixth inning that the Black Sox' offense finally got something going.
After reaching with a walk and a single, respectively, Thomas Allmaras and Cudworth found themselves on second and third base with just one out.
Senior Luke Yri was at the plate, and on a 2-1 pitch he slapped a ground ball straight to the first baseman. The hit was too hot to handle, however, and the ball got by the Lakers' defender, allowing Allmaras and Cudworth to cross home plate and tie the game.
The Sox weren't able to add anymore, however, and the score would remain knotted. After the Lakers failed to score in the bottom of the seventh, the game went to extra innings.
Cudworth, however, had reached the tournament pitch limit of 120 pitches, so the Sox would have to rely on Connor Knatterud to get the job done in extra innings – and that's exactly what he did.
Following Cudworth's excellent outing, Knatterud somehow looked even stronger, as he efficiently worked his way through the Lakers' lineup.
The Sox' offense, however, was running into the same problem with Lakers' pitcher, Paxton Ystaas, and for several innings the score remained deadlocked at 2-2.
Eventually though, it was the Sox who managed to break the stalemate.
Brody Weisenburger got things going with an infield single in the top of the 11th inning, which was followed by a line-drive double to left field by his cousin Alex Weisenburger, putting runners on second and third with one out.
Next to the plate was Sox' catcher Bradyn Collier, who got the biggest hit of his baseball career with an RBI single into left field, giving the Sox their first lead of the ball game.
Now with a 3-2 advantage, the Sox entered the bottom of the frame needing to hold their slim lead.
But with Knatterud on the mound their lead might as well have been 100 runs, and sure enough it wasn't long before the final three outs were recorded. It was a statement victory to start their state tournament: the Black Sox belonged here and wouldn't be going down easily.
Unfortunately for SNR, however, their reward for winning was a semifinal matchup with the 3-time reigning state champion Thompson Tommies, who hadn't even missed a state tournament since 2016 and who boasted a near-perfect record in the regular season.
They were – by far – the favorites to win it all, and in their quarterfinal matchup they won via mercy rule against the Surrey Mustangs.
They wouldn't have it as easy against the Black Sox, however.
For much of their game on Friday, June 1, both the Tommies and Black Sox struggled to get anything going on offense, and for three innings the score remained 0-0.
Easton Simon was starting on the mound for the Sox, and just like at the Region III Tournament, he was doing a great job of getting through the opposing lineup, which in this case happened to be the toughest lineup in the state.
But the Tommies couldn't be contained forever, and in the bottom of the fourth inning they scored their first run with an RBI single from Bradon Tyce, before another run was tacked on in the fifth inning, making it 2-0.
Unfortunately the Sox couldn't do anything offensively to respond, not against the Tommies' starting pitcher, Drew Odenbach.
And then the dam finally broke, as Thompson broke out for four more runs in the sixth inning, bringing the final score to 6-0, and relegating SNR to the third/fourth place game against Central Cass on Saturday, June 2.
The Squirrels had lost to Grafton in their semifinal game, and took out their aggression on the Black Sox, scoring four runs right away in the first inning. They ultimately tacked on an additional five runs and took a 9-0 victory to secure third place.
Meanwhile, Thompson went on to take yet another state championship with a 4-3 win over Grafton.
Although they would have been hoping for more after that impressive quarterfinal victory, the Black Sox' spring season ended with a fourth place finish at the state tournament – not bad for a program that hasn't even seen the state tournament in 24 years.
Black Sox Head Coach and Region 3 Coach of the Year, Dave Skogen, had plenty of praise for his squad.
"I couldn't be more proud of my guys," he said. "The way they fought tooth and nail every single game this season from the beginning all the way to the end ... They fought, they believed and they trusted each other.
"'Together we go' was kind of our motto at the end of the season," he added. "No one person was going to win the game, it had to be an effort of everybody together, and we saw that time and time again throughout the season where someone would come up with a big hit or big defensive play.
"I couldn't be more proud of the season we had."
And now, they'll try to do it all again. The legion baseball season is already getting underway, and most of the spring team will be returning to the diamond with hopes of qualifying for another state tournament.
Class B State Baseball Tourney
Quarterfinal
SNR 3, DLB 2
Thursday, May 30
in Jamestown
SNR 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 - 3 6 3
DLB 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 2 5 4
SNR Individual Stats
Hitting: AB R H RBI
Knatterud 4 0 0 0
Allmaras 4 1 0 0
Cudworth 5 1 2 0
B Weisenburger 5 1 1 0
Yri 5 0 0 2
A Weisenburger 4 0 1 0
Collier 4 0 1 1
Kramlich 4 0 0 0
Simon 4 0 1 0
Pitching: IP H ER SO
Cudworth 7.0 4 0 4
Knatterud 4.0 1 0 3
DLB Individual Stats
Hitting: AB R H RBI
B Fisher 4 0 0 1
Kilbourn - - - -
Abernathey 2 0 0 0
Ystaas 2 0 0 1
Hughes 5 0 1 0
Schaefer 3 0 0 0
Ralph 3 0 1 0
Roedocker 5 0 1 0
K Fisher 5 1 1 0
Feller 2 1 0 0
Anderson 1 0 1 0
Roe 1 0 0 0
Pitching: IP H ER SO
Ystaas 9.0 3 0 9
Schaefer 2.0 3 1 2
Class B State Baseball Tourney
Semifinal
SNR 0, Thompson 6
Friday, May 31
in Jamestown
SNR 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 0 3 3
THO 0 0 0 1 1 4 X - 6 10 1
SNR Individual Stats
Hitting: AB R H RBI
Knatterud 4 0 2 0
Allmaras 3 0 0 0
Cudworth 2 0 0 0
B Weisenburger 2 0 0 0
Yri 3 0 0 0
A Weisenburger 3 0 0 0
Collier 3 0 0 0
Kramlich 2 0 0 0
Simon 3 0 1 0
Pitching: IP H ER SO
Simon 6.0 10 1 2
Thompson Individual Stats
Hitting: AB R H RBI
Schumacher 4 2 2 2
Overby 4 1 2 0
Wolfgram 3 0 2 2
Welke 4 0 0 0
Gibson 3 0 1 0
Muhs 3 2 2 0
Odenbach 3 1 0 0
B Tyce 3 0 1 0
J Tyce 3 0 0 0
Pitching: IP H ER SO
Odenbach 7.0 3 0 8
Class B State Baseball Tourney
Third Place
SNR 0, Central Cass 9
Saturday, June 1
in Jamestown
SNR 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 0 4 2
CC 4 0 1 2 2 0 X - 9 9 3
SNR Individual Stats
Hitting: AB R H RBI
Knatterud 4 0 0 0
Allmaras 2 0 0 0
Cudworth 4 0 1 0
B Weisenburger 2 0 0 0
Yri 3 0 0 0
A Weisenburger 3 0 0 0
Collier 3 0 2 0
Kramlich 3 0 0 0
Simon 3 0 1 0
Pitching: IP H ER SO
Knatterud 3.0 5 5 0
Yri 3.0 4 3 1
Central Cass Individual Stats
Hitting: AB R H RBI
Braaten 2 1 0 1
Vrchota 2 1 1 0
Mitchell 2 2 1 1
Maasjo 3 2 1 0
Buhr 4 0 2 1
Pearson 3 1 1 1
Parker 3 1 2 2
Baarstad 2 1 1 2
Holzer 3 0 0 0
Pitching: IP H ER SO
Maasjo 7.0 4 0 11
