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Mustangs muster enough offense to keep season alive

Garrick Hodge/MDN Surrey pitcher Mason Dunn fires a pitch during a loser-out game at the Region 6 baseball tournament Monday at Corbett Field in Minot.

Having both loss earlier in the day, the Surrey-ORCS and Max-Garrison-White Shield baseball teams squared off Monday evening in the Region 6 tournament at Corbett Field with its seasons on the line.

At times, it wasn’t pretty. But, Surrey did just enough for a slim 4-3 elimination game victory.

“We pitched better than we did the first game,” Surrey coach Bruce Mack said. “We didn’t have to combat so many free passes and things like that. That was the biggest thing I think, we pitched better.”

The Mustangs walked 11 batters in their first-round game defeat to Velva-Drake/Anamoose-Sawyer. Mason Dunn provided six scoreless innings in the bounce back contest a half an hour later.

“It’s the time of the year where somebody needs to step up,” Mack said. “Mason did a great job. He threw strikes the whole game and didn’t hurt himself by putting on free people, so that was a big difference maker.”

After the Cossacks stranded two runners in the top of the first inning, Surrey pounced first in the bottom of the first with an error off the shortstop on a tricky hop off the bat of Jayden Wetzel.

Loading the bases with one-out in the second inning, the Cossacks popped out twice to spoil another golden opportunity to take the lead. They left the bases loaded once more in the fourth inning.

“It’s frustrating, and I know the guys that were at-bat take it personally too,” Cossacks coach Jade Larson said. “They were hard on themselves, but that’s the way baseball is sometimes.”

The Mustangs took advantage in the exact same situation that the Cossacks couldn’t. With the bases loaded up again in the bottom of the fourth, Kage Miller put down a perfect suicide squeeze bunt and starting pitcher Jaaron Kamp gave Surrey another run with a balk.

A single by Collin Headrick and a misplayed ball in left field allowed Surrey to tack on an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth. It was needed.

Dunn ran into trouble in the Cossacks’ final at-bats. With no outs recorded, a two-run RBI triple by Nashton Wilmer cut Surrey’s lead in half. Collin O’Grady, the next batter, then brought home Wilmer on an RBI single.

“I don’t know about nervous,” Mack said. “I was pretty confident we were going to get our three outs.”

The rally was stopped by first baseman Mitchell Seopa with an unassisted double play.

“They never give up, they have done that all year,” Larson said. “Another thing in the seventh didn’t go our way. Hard hit to the first baseman and that’s tough for that runner too. Not his fault.”

The Cossacks outhit Surrey 12-7, but left 12 runners on base.

The Mustangs advances to another loser out game at 3 p.m. this evening at Corbett Field. Winner of that goes to the first game of the championship series in the game that follows. If the team with one-loss for the tournament takes the first championship game, then a winner-take-all game for a state tournament berth will be played on Wednesday.

Alex Eisen covers Minot High School, Minot State athletics and high school sports. Follow him on Twitter @AEisen13.

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