Drew Jordan and the Minot Vistas are in search of their fourth consecutive Justin Demary Memorial Tournament title this weekend at Corbett Field beginning on Friday, July 10. Mike Kraft/MDN

Few people in the Minot area spent more time around Justin Demary during the former Minot State University baseball player’s brief residency in the Magic City than Minot Vistas coach Pat Arntson.

Arnston was an assistant coach for the Beavers when Demary joined the team in 2017 as a junior transfer from Pearl River Community College. They became co-workers at Heilman’s Performance following Demary’s graduation, working as a strength and conditioning coach. They even spent time duck hunting together, as it was one of Demary’s favorite hobbies.

Demary unexpectedly passed away on Feb. 22, 2021, after moving back to his hometown in Louisiana. Five years later, Arntson and the rest of the Minot community continues to preserve his memory through the Justin Demary Memorial Tournament, which begins on Friday, July 10, at Corbett Field.

The inaugural tournament took place in 2017 as the Heilman Performance Tournament, but was later renamed to the Justin Demary Memorial Tournament beginning in 2022 at the request of Caleb Heilman, who is both the owner/operator at Heilman’s Performance as well as the director of human performance at Minot State. Arntson works for Heilman at both ventures and credits that decision to rebrand the tournament for keeping it going.

“It’s always been hard to host a tournament for the Vistas and I was ready to move on, but my boss Caleb Heilman brought up renaming it in Justin’s memory and it was easy,” Heilman said. “It’s a way to share his story every year over the summer and keep his name out there and keep his name alive and share with a few new people what he meant to us up here.”

Demary – born in Lake Charles, La. – arrived in Minot in 2017 by way of Pearl River Community College in Poplarville, Miss. Prior to college, Demary was a two-sport athlete, playing both baseball and football and was an all-state and all-Southwest Louisiana team selection as a junior and senior. With PRCC, the utility player had a 2.79 ERA his freshman season and batted .324 as a sophomore. In two years with the Beavers, Demary hit .298 with 15 doubles and four home runs, and produced 29 RBIs and scored 57 runs. On the mound, he appeared in 25 games, making 20 starts. He was 11-7 with two saves and seven complete games. He tossed 135 1/3 innings, striking out 106 batters and sporting a 3.92 ERA.

“He was such a blue-collar guy,” Arntson said. “He was a crazy competitive hard-working guy, but also a fun guy to be around. I spent plenty of days duck hunting with him. That was one of his big passions and being in the outdoors. We meshed pretty easy. He was such a good guy and that’s why you want to do something like this for his parents down in Louisiana to keep sharing how special their son was instead of just moving on.”

The Beavers won the NSIC Championship his senior season.

Demary’s name still lives on in the MSU record books. His six wins in 2017 is tied for second in a single season in team history and his five complete games in 2018 also ranks second.

Demary became a nationally certified strength and conditioning specialist and spent time working with Arntson and Heilman at Heilman Performance, which offers youth strength and conditioning programs and personal training, baseball skill development programs and personal training, and swimming lessons in the summer. He would go on to intern in Jupiter, Fla., and Kent, Wash., before landing a job as a strength and conditioning coach within the Boston Red Sox’s minor league system. However, the COVID-19 pandemic hit shortly after and he returned home to Louisiana as a result.

Each year during the tournament, the Vistas display a banner in their dugout that they have every team participating in the weekend event sign. Arnston ships the banner down to Louisiana to Demary’s mother, Tammy, to give to someone who played an important role in Justin’s life.

Demary’s parents established the Justin Demary Foundation for Impacting Athletics. According to the website, the mission is to “empower and provide financial support to young athletes who have committed to using lifelong values attained through athletics, hard work and determination.” The $500 and $1,000 scholarships are offered to athletes across the Southwest Louisiana area. The foundation has offered around 100 scholarships to roughly 100 athletes, totalling over $55,000.

As for the tournament itself, this year’s field consists of four teams: the Minot Vistas, Mandan Chiefs, East Central Red Sox (Sask.) and the Manitoba Warriors. Each team will play four games over the two-day tournament, but only three will count toward the pool play results, which will ultimately determine the champion. In past years, a championship game was played Sunday morning to close out the tournament, but this year there is no championship game and the trophy will be awarded to the team with the best pool play record and any subsequent tiebreaker.

The Vistas (18-14) play the first game of the tournament against the Mandan Chiefs on Friday, July 10, at 11 a.m. They will also play Manitoba at 6:30 p.m. to close out Day 1. They return to Corbett Field for another 11 a.m. contest on Saturday, July 11, against East Central before playing a non-counter against Manitoba at 6:30 p.m. to finish out the tournament slate.

“Mandan is playing really well,” Arntson said. “They handled us pretty good at their place a couple weeks ago. I know we’ve never seen the Red Sox, but they’ve typically done pretty well in Saskatchewan and we’ve played some pretty good teams from there and the Warriors we’ve played previously, but they’ve always been missing a guy or two and we’ve never seen them full-force, so I’d imagine they’d all be pretty competitive.”

The Warriors’ roster features many players from the South Central Cubs, a team that has participated in the tournament multiple times in the past, including the previous two years. East Central is making its tournament debut, while the Chiefs have become a tournament regular and won the event in 2022 in the first year following the name change.

The Vistas have had plenty of success as the tournament host, lifting the trophy six times since the inaugural year in 2017. They are the three-time defending champion and have won 14 straight games dating back to 2023. Their last loss came to Glendive (Mont.) in the tournament opener in 2023.

While not all of Minot’s games in the tournament will factor into the overall results, Arntson said he doesn’t plan to play it any differently.

“For the most part, it won’t be a whole lot different at this point of the summer,” Arntson said. “We’ve been given guys chances. We’re going to play to win and we’ll also be throwing our arms with next week in mind when we have to go to Dickinson for some conference games. We’re still going to throw our guys out there and try to win every game we play, but obviously the three round robin games are the most important.”

At the end of the day, win or lose, this weekend is much more than just baseball.

“It’s kind of heavy, but it gives you time to sit and reflect on all the good times we had with him, which is important to keep it fresh in your mind,” Arntson said. “Overall, this is pretty minimal to do for his family after what they have lost.”