The Harney All-Stars nearly made a comeback to remember, but the South Dakota Little League State title banner will stay in Sioux Falls for the second straight season.
Harney needed two wins on championship Monday at Collins Field, and downed Sioux Falls 6-2 in the opener behind an outstanding pitching performance from Bryson Menkhaus. But Sioux Falls came back swinging and then held on for dear life in winning the “if necessary game” and state title, 12-9.
The two teams met for the first time in the tournament Friday and Sioux Falls held on for a 9-7 win. That meant Harney had to bounce back in the elimination round for two days for another shot at the defending champs.
In the second game, Sioux Falls jumped out to a 10-4 lead before Harney clawed back to make it 10-9 going into the sixth and final inning. Sioux Falls scored twice in the sixth and Evin Edwards came on in relief and struck out the side for the win.
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“That last game we gave them a four-spot in that first inning, and I was really proud,” Harney manager Mike McCulley said. “I told them in the outfield (after the game) that ‘you could have quit, but you didn’t quit. You fought back and you won almost every inning after that.’ That means a lot of about what they got inside and they are going to do great things moving forward.”
With the win, Sioux Falls advances to the Midwest Regionals, taking place Aug. 5-12 in Indianapolis.
“We’re excited to represent the state of South Dakota there and I think we play Missouri on the first day,” Sioux Falls manager Joe Rempp said. “We’re just going to go there and compete and give it our best.”
Sioux Falls came out swinging in the second game with six hits and four runs off of Harney starter Caleb Wald. Edwards, Talec Schlimgen and Eli Hart had consecutive RBI-doubles and Kade Oehlke had a run-scoring single.
Harney answered with four in the bottom-half of the inning when it loaded the bases with no outs and got a two-run single by Henry Forstner and RBI-single by Marvin Cuny and a run-scoring fly ball by Tate Uchytil.
But just like that it was a six-run game as the Sioux Falls offense appeared to be on cruise control after a two-run double by Schlimgen, a two-run single by Dawson Barck and a run-scoring single by Henrik Kortan.
“At 10-4 you want to feel comfortable, but it is baseball,” Rempp said. “I’ve seen games in college where a team is down 10-0 and they come back to win. Getting those insurance runs at the end helped, but you have to play and compete to the last out.”
Rempp was right as Harney just kept coming back and had a chance to tie the game in the bottom of the fifth after scoring one run in the third, three in the fourth and one in the fifth.
Harney got a run in the third on a RBI groundout by Fox Penedgraft and then made it 10-8 after four, highlighted by RBI-singles by Cuny and Brice Gosch.
After Harney got a RBI-single by Forstner to make it a one-run game in the fifth, Owen Rempp came up with the play of the day when he took Cuny’s fly ball in right field and fired a bullet to catcher Grady Johnson, who perfectly shielded home base and tagged out Hudson Ogle trying to score from third.
“Hats off to the right fielder. We made him make a play and he threw a dime. That was perfect,” McCulley said. “That was just a great baseball play.”
In the top of the sixth, Sioux Falls got a pair of insurance runs off of Cuny on an RBI sac-fly by Sajen Haas and a Harney error.
Sioux Falls had 12 hits, led by Schlimgen’s two doubles and two RBIs.
“Caleb did a good job,” McCulley said. “They were hitting them early and we knew they would hit him because they have some guys that can swing it. I’m not taking anything away from those guys, they can swing it.”
In the opener, Harney jumped on Schlimgen with two runs in the top of the first inning on a RBI groundout by Cuny and a run-scoring single by Menkhaus. Harney made it 4-0 on RBI singles by Brayden McCulley and Wald in the second and third innings respectively.
Menkhaus was strong on the mound and held Sioux Falls to just one unearned run through five innings before leaving because of the pitch count.
Hart hit a massive solo home run over the left-field fence in the top of the sixth off of McCulley in relief, but he finished strong for the save.
Mike McCulley said it never hurts when you play with the lead like they did in the opener.
“When you have the lead and you can pitch with the lead, one run doesn’t matter,” he said. “(Hart) hit the ball a mile in that last inning, but with that lead, it didn’t hurt us.”
Sioux Falls had seven hits in the second game with Tanner Charron adding two singles and one RBI. Menkhaus, McCulley and Wald had one RBI for Harney.
“We kind of told the boys that nobody was thinking that we have much,” McCulley said. “When we began sub-districts, (Rapid City Youth baseball) took care of us. The boys just did a good job of knowing that this is what we can do. We had to hit the ball, we had to make plays and we just had to roll it out there and see what happened.”’