Eight-seeded Bismarck were looking to upset the top seed in the WDA tournament, May 27, but some costly mistakes kept the Demons from threatening the Midgets.
Dickinson recorded only one RBI on the night, but were able to take advantage of the sloppy play from Bismarck as they won 9-3 in the WDA quarterfinals.
The Demons were the ones to strike first, taking a 3-0 lead after the first two innings thanks to an RBI double and some opportunistic baserunning.
“It’s been how we’ve been playing our last couple of weeks,” Head Coach Pete Dobitz said. “Starting slow and then keeping the pressure on and able to finish strong. We keep preaching it’s going to come back and bite us.”
Dickinson held strong, as they took advantage of some errors from Bismarck. All of their runs in the second inning came off errors and needed only one hit to record three runs.
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The next barrage of runs for the Midgets came in the third inning with the game tied 3-3. It started with the leadoff man Landon Aman being walked and then stealing second.
Then after reaching third, Logan Bentz sent Aman home off a sacrifice fly to right field. Despite there being two outs at this point, the inning was far from over.
Three straight batters were walked to load the bases to put the pressure on the Demons.
Bismarck were unable to handle it, as Dickinson scored off a wild pitch, passed ball, and a stolen base at home after some errant throws from the Bismarck defense.
It quickly erased the 3-0 deficit the Midgets faced in the second inning.
“That’s the kind of stuff we do,” Dobitz said. “We’re going to put pressure on them defensively and speed kills. We’re able to get our baserunners running. We had a guy thrown out so we had to make some adjustments on how we were stealing bases and timing. After that it seemed to go better and that puts pressure on them thinking they have to throw it that much harder.”
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Dobitz credits pitcher Drew Kovash for remaining tough after facing an early deficit.
“Things weren’t going so well for him and behind him, giving up a base hit with an error and the runs going around” Dobitz said. “But he kept battling on the mound.”
Kovash dug in after the second inning and kept Bismarck from scoring any more runs and surrendered two hits the rest of the way. He was relieved by Reese Mack after recording one out in the final inning with a cheer from the crowd.
It took only six hits to record nine runs as the Midgets drew eight walks. Aiden Haich had three of the six hits in his three at-bats.
Next up for Dickinson will be five-seed Century where Dobitz expects another tough battle.
“It’s similar to this, they will get their base hits,” Dobitz said. “We’re going to have to play solid defense, better than we did tonight. We have to throw strikes and can’t have the ball behind us and put pressure on them with our baserunning.”
