Dickinson host Babe Ruth Midwest Plains Regional tourney
Jul. 29—DICKINSON — The Babe Ruth 13U Midwest Plains Regional tournament is being held in Dickinson at the Dakota Community Bank and Trust ballpark and day one featured successes in highly competitive games.
This year only seven teams made the trip for the tourney, instead of the custom eight.
Among the cities represented are North Dakota's state champions Fargo 61's Blue, No .2 Dickinson and No. 3 Bismarck. Representing Minnesota were state champions Brainerd/Baxter, No. 2 Wait Park and No. 3 Moorhead, rounding out the pool of champions was South Dakota's state champions Rapid City.
The first three days of competition will be pool play to determine seeds of the single elimination bracket set to be played this Sunday. The last team remaining will be this year's regional champions and will continue on to the Babe Ruth 13 year-old World Series.
Before the opening ceremonies and the feature game of the night between Dickinson Cavalry and Brainerd/Baxter Warriors, there were three games played out that brought excitement and had the crowd cheering.
The day started with Waite Park facing Fargo in a 6-2 ball game favoring the North Dakota team. Fargo's rightfielder Brander Hilmert was the player of the game after going 3-for-4 at the plate, including a double and two RBIs.
The next game would pit Moorhead testing their mettle against the host team Dickinson in what would become an absolute slug fest with 28 runs in total — most runs in the contest.
Dickinson would secure a 19-9 win in four and a half innings. For their valiant effort, Moorhead's Gavin Marsden was selected for the player of the game.
"Very proud of our guys," Reese Mack, head coach of Dickinson, said. "We just got to keep playing our baseball. We got to have fun. The bottom of the order is big for us this weekend. The bottom of the order contributed and the top of the order continues to do what they do."
The game between Bismarck Capitals and Rapid City Sliders was a well fought battle, between both teams who put everything on the field. The favored Rapid City lost 19-7 in an upset after holding a 7-5 lead until the top of the sixth inning when Bismarck bats got hot in back-to-back seven-run innings.
The player of the match was Ian Schweigert, whose at bat got the ball rolling for Bismarck in the sixth. He had two doubles for three RBIs and also attributed the final putout of the game as their first baseman.
"At the beginning of the year we said that we wanted to go compete in regions and I don't think the boys bought in right away, but we flipped the switch one practice and the boys bought in ever since," Christian Medick, Bismarck head coach, said. "[Today] we swung really well, we managed our pitching really well and we got to keep this thing going."
The feature game was slated for 7 p.m. but got a late start that kept the two teams and their fans at the field well after 10 p.m. It ended 15-8 favoring the Minnesota state champions.
Dickinson did not get the start that they wanted, falling into a 7-0 hole at the end of the third inning, with small mistakes adding up. The Cavalry did show up in the later innings and scored consecutively from the fourth to the seventh. Tydan Guida took the player of the game as the Warriors' starting pitcher. Guida struckout three batters and allowed only two hits in three and two-third innings.
The Dickinson Press would like to congratulate each team and good luck through the tourney.
