Jamestown Eagles fall short in 2-1 loss to West Fargo
Jul. 31—WEST FARGO, N.D. — The clock struck midnight for the No. 7-seeded Jamestown Eagles in a hard-fought 2-1 loss to the No.3-seeded West Fargo Patriots in the North Dakota American Legion baseball AA state championship game on Saturday, July 30, at Young Field.
The Patriots' road to the title had to go through the Eagles twice, with the Eagles getting a 2-1 win on July 27, relegating the Patriots to the loser's bracket.
"We knew we had to win four in a row," Patriots head coach Jordan Rheault said. "We knew it would be a tough battle but when your backs are against the wall, you can either get better or get worse and our kids got better."
Patriots starter Nolan Dodds pitched a complete game, giving up five hits and one run with seven strikeouts.
"Today I was just throwing all my pitches for strikes, trying to locate it and that's what happened," Dodds said.
The Eagles showed off their heads-up play in the bottom of the first when they faced bases loaded with no outs and forced Konner Entz to hit a ground ball to third baseman Payton Hochhalter. Hochhalter threw to home to catcher Max Fronk, who then threw to first in time for the double play. The Patriots still managed to get a run in the inning on an infield single to make it a 1-0 game.
Eagles head coach Sam Joseph said the double play to help limit the damage was key to his team being able to stay in the game.
"It was a low-scoring game, it keeps it low scoring and that's what you wanted," Joseph said. "We knew it was going to be a low-scoring game with the pitcher they had on the mound, with our pitchers that we had left. It's one of those things where a couple bounces here or there and it could've been a different inning."
The Patriots loaded the bases again in the bottom of the fourth and converted on a Jackson Walters wild pitch to stretch their lead to 2-0.
Heading into the top of the seventh inning, Dodds was pitching a shutout with six strikeouts. The Eagles had other ideas though with Hochhalter leading off with a single before a Carson Orr single set up first and second with nobody out for Thomas Newman to bunt the runners to second and third. Gage Orr stepped up and hit the first pitch he saw to the third baseman whose throw was not in time to score the run and cut the deficit to 2-1.
"We were the seven seed coming into this tournament, everybody counted us out," Joseph said. "We came here and played baseball the way we know how to baseball and proved to everybody that the Jamestown community is a baseball community team and that we're going to be here for a long time."
P14 1, WF 2
P14: 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 — 1 5 1
WF: 1 0 0 1 0 0 X — 2 5 0
WP: Nolan Dodds LP: Jackson Walters
