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Shutout earns state berth

Talon Thompson claws Muskrats to Northwest Region title

Alex Eisen/MDN Renville County first baseman Charlie Eriksmoen (69) celebrates with his teammates after the Muskrats beat Burlington, 3-0, for the Northwest Region championship Sunday evening in Burlington.

BURLINGTON — Twenty-four hours after losing a 8-7 heartbreaker to Burlington, the Renville County Muskrats picked themselves up and didn’t let their chance at making the American Legion Class B State Tournament slip away.

A complete game shutout Sunday evening by Talon Thompson carried No. 2-seeded Renville County to a 3-0 victory over the top-seeded and regional hosts Burlington for the Northwest Region championship.

“It was a good game and I really like playing these guys because they always put up a good effort,” Thompson said, who allowed five hits. “I think the last year we went to state was my brother’s senior year, so this is pretty cool. We have a lot of young kids and most games we were scraping just to get nine players throughout the season because everybody is basketball-ing with team camps and stuff. But, I guess when we have a full team, this is what we can do.”

There were only a handful of hard hit balls off of Thompson, as he fooled the Bulldogs all evening long.

“He kept mixing his fastball with his curveball and that kept them off balance,” Renville County coach Toby Routledge said about Thompson. “He was really on tonight. It’s just a matter of keeping him fresh because he gets winded pretty easily. But, it means the world to us for him to come in and pitch like that because after him, I don’t know, I was going to have to find out who was going to come in.”

Alex Eisen/MDN Muskrats starting pitcher Talon Thompson (14) throws a complete game shutout to knock off Burlington for the Northwest Region championship and reach the American Legion Class B State Tournament.

Thompson added: “A little bit of my off speed was working and then I guess they had a tough time catching up to the fastball.”

Burlington starting pitcher Jacob Ruden went pitch-for-pitch for Thompson in the early going, until Thompson broke the deadlock himself in the fourth inning with an RBI double to left field. Later in the inning, Charlie Eriksmoen brought in another run on a single that stayed fair down the left field line.

Meanwhile, the Burlington Bulldogs couldn’t find a clutch hit to plate any of their runners. A two-out knock back up the middle was snagged by Thompson on the mound in the fourth to save a couple of runs and the Bulldogs also stranded runners on second and third with one out in the sixth.

“It didn’t matter how well (Jacob) Ruden pitched — and he pitched well — you got to score some runs,” Burlington coach Matt Koronka said. “That’s just baseball. One day you are on it and one day you are not. We had situations where we needed that hit. I credit them. They made the plays they had to.”

Chase Gates, who was the starting pitching in Renville’s loss to Burlington the day prior, added an insurance RBI double in the sixth inning to put the Muskrats up 3-0.

Thompson didn’t need the extra run support. He shut down the Bulldogs 1-2-3 in the seventh to secure the Northwest Region championship, and was mobbed by his teammates accordingly.

“To get Talon (Thompson) and Chase (Gates) to state before they are done here, it means a lot,” Routledge said. “It’s one of those things where you just try to fight for your teammates and those two are a really big part of our program.”

After the game while Renville County celebrated on the other side of the field, the Bulldogs spent a good 15 minutes in their final post-game huddle of the season. There were more smiles than tears, as Koronka reminiscence about the summer and what they had accomplished.

“It was a great season,” Koronka said. “The guys won 25 ballgames this year. I pushed them hard and we played almost 40 games. A lot of hard work and I’m really happy with how they conducted themselves as gentlemen. They represented themselves and the community really well.”

The Muskrats are headed to the state tournament in Langdon where they will ironically have to face Thompson (the American Legion team from the east, not their own starting pitcher) in the first round. The double elimination state tournament is being held August 1 through August 5.

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

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