Blue Jays split with Magicians, No. 6 seed headed into WDAs

May 21—Jackson Walters spent three hours of his Friday evening out at Jack Brown Stadium, battling rain and 40-degree weather.

A short 10 innings later, Walters and the Jamestown High School baseball team walked off the field victors.

"That was a first and I really don't want to do it again," Walters said of playing a 10-inning game. "Our goal as a team was just to come in and get the win and we were blessed to come out with a win."

The Blue Jays wound up defeating Minot 6-5 and x-x in the team's final regular-season, conference game. Jamestown will officially wrap up its regular-season schedule with a non-conference gamer against Fargo Davies on Saturday. First pitch is scheduled to be delivered at 1 p.m. at Jack Brown.

Jamestown had to sweep the doubleheader to sure up the No, 4 seed heading into the WDA tournament next weekend. With the split, the Jays are now the sixth-seeded team headed into the regional tourney. Jamestown is slated to face third-seeded Mandan in the opening round of the tournament on Thursday.

The No. 4, 5 and 6 seeds were all up for grabs Friday afternoon.

While the Jays finished out game No. 1 on top, it was the Magicians who put runs on the board — notching two right away in the top of the first inning — off of a pair of Blue Jay defensive errors.

Jamestown pulled back into control in the second.

With runners on first and second, Max Fronk capped off the Jays' nine-man order with a single that landed in right field to send Reagan Sortland across the plate. Connor Hoyt tied things up with a line drive to left field that sent Gage Orr and Ethan Gall — Fronk's courtesy runner — home.

The second frame wasn't over.

Hoyt put on the rockets and sprinted home on an Adam Roedocker wild pitch.

The momentum in the box carried over to the infield where 0-1 count, Tyler Collins ripped one out to Payton Hochhalter at shortstop who then turned and converted on the double play.

A strong, steady defense combined with some on-point pitches is truly what kept the Jays in the game all the way from the sixth to the 10th frame.

"I loved their resilience," head coach Jack Bowman said. "I love that they kept battling and battling and that's what we need.

"We're missing three guys — but our pitching has been really good. That is what has carried us all year and we did pretty well today."

Walters toed the rubber for the first seven innings, during which time he allowed 5 runs on 9 hits. The junior walked 3 and notched 6 Ks. Hoyt took over in the eighth frame. Across the three innings, the senior hurler retired four batters. He did not allow any hits and walked zero.

"Connor didn't play (Thursday at West Fargo Sheyenne) because he was hurt — he said his elbow wasn't feeling quite right but today he said he felt all right," Bowman said. "But we had no intention of putting him on the mound but he came up and he threw strikes, he had a good rhythm and he kept everybody in it. That was awesome."

Hoyt said he put a lot of ice on his arm yesterday and made sure to take care of it Friday by taking it slow during warm-ups.

While Hoyt was doing his part in the circle, Carson Orr was doing his best in the box.

"Carson Orr did really well on the bats today — he had a ton of hits for us and put us all in good positions," Walters said.

Walters was sitting at second when Orr approached the plate for his sixth go-around with the bat in the bottom of the 10th. Orr hit a line drive to right-center field that sent Walters home.

"Once I saw him up and the bat off of the ball, I knew I was going in," Walters said. "They weren't going to stop me — we were trying to win this game and not go 11 innings — we're trying to get out of here by midnight."

Headed into the tournament, Bowman said he is feeling just fine and with wealth of arms he's got on the mound and a defense that is getting better each game — there is really not any reason he — or any other members of the team — shouldn't.

"I am feeling very confident — I think we can go really far in the tournament this year," Hoyt said.

Jamestown 6, Minot 5

MIN 200 012 000 0— 5 9 2

JHS 040 001 000 1 — 6 10 4

JHS: Jackson Walters, Connor Hoyt (8); MIN: Adam Roedocker, Carson Deaver (6), Morgan Nygaard (7). W — Hoyt; L — Nygaard.

Highlights: JHS — Hoyt (3 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 K, 0 BB) 3-5, 2 RBI, 2B; Jackson Walters (7 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 6 K, 3 BB); Carson Orr 3-6; Reagan Sortland 1-4, 2B; Gage Orr 1-2, RBI; Max Fronk 1-2, RBI.

MIN — Morgan Nygaard 2-5, 2B; Tyler Buchanan 1-3, 2 RBI; Tyler Collins 1-5; Kellan Burke 2-5, 2 RBI, 2B.

Minot 6, Jamestown 4

MIN 200 3010 — 6 9 4

JHS 201 001 0 — 4 8 2

JHS: Thomas Newman; MIN: Tyler Collins, Hunter Horner. W — Collins; L — Newman.

Highlights: JHS — Newman (7 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 8 K); Carson Orr 2-3, RBI; Reagan Sortland 1-3, 2 RBI.

MIN — Nygaard 3-4; Burke 1-4, RBI; Jonas 1-2, 2 RBI; Hunter Ruzicka 1-4, 2 RBI.