Nelson County went into the American Legion baseball season with more than 40 games on its schedule. Despite playing in the North Dakota Class B small-town division, Owls coach Brent Luehring wasn't concerned about having the pitching depth to cover that aggressive schedule.
"I think the kids would rather play games than practice,'' Luehring said. "Typically, we've scheduled between 30 and 40 games a year, depending on how many kids and how much pitching we expected to have.
"We have five pitchers we're pretty confident in and we have some depth to go with them.''
The pitching has more than held up.
Going into Wednesday's doubleheader against defending B state champion Carrington, Nelson County had a 33-4 record. The pitching staff has a 2.87 team earned run average and the hurlers have consistently been good. The Owls staff has seven shutouts, limited teams to one run in eight games and two runs in nine games.
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"Pitching and defense-that's definitely the strength of our team,'' Luehring said.
The pitching ace is Jayden Grover, a hard-throwing right-hander who pitched at Minnesota-Crookston last spring. Grover is 4-1 with 53 strikeouts in 36.1 innings. He's yet to allow an earned run.
Cole Varnson (4-2, 3.70, 40 strikeouts in 31.2 innings), Sean Perry (5-0, 3.22), Colton Berg (3-0, 1.80) and Eric Salvesen (4-1, 4.01) are other regular starters, with Hunter Sand (3-0, 3.15) also pitching regularly.
"Jayden always has been a hard thrower, and all of his breaking stuff is sharper and his control has improved after a year in college,'' Luehring said. "Varnson throws hard, too. The others throw pretty hard, but they aren't the types who blow hitters away. The defense is the most important thing.''
Perry, like Grover, is a year out of high school. He played football at Minnesota-Crookston last fall.
"Grover and Perry added two more good arms, and we had a pretty deep pitching staff in the high school season,'' Luehring said.
Berg behind the plate, Sand at shortstop and Salvesen filling a number of positions, depending on who pitches, lead the defense.
The stingy pitching has taken the burden off the Owls' bats. But Nelson County has held its own offensively with a .329 team batting average and an average of 7.9 runs per game.
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Bradyn Sand (.432, 32 RBI, 10 extra-base hits), Berg (.386, 28 RBI, 11 extra-base hits), Grover (.358, 21 RBI, 16 extra-base hits), Perry (.341) and Salvesen (.325) lead an offense that has eight regulars hitting better than .300.
Nelson County has locked up the No. 1 seed in the Northeast Region tournament, which begins Tuesday in Langdon-a field that also includes strong Thompson, Langdon and Cando programs.
