Tyler Schmidt saw familiar faces in both dugouts at Kraft Field on Wednesday.
Schmidt is the head coach of the Casselton team that beat Beulah 5-1 in the opening round of the North Dakota Class A American Legion baseball tournament. Schmidt is in his first season at Casselton; he'd been head Legion coach at Beulah each of the past two seasons.
"I coached all of those (Beulah) kids and their coaches,'' Schmidt said. "It was kind of different coaching against them. I'd love to see them do well, too, so I'd rather not have had to play them in the first round.''
Jonah Lietz threw a complete game, allowing just four hits while striking out six, to get the pitching win.
The Haymakers broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the third with three runs. Garret Prante started the two-out rally with a single. Drew Roden and Andrew Jahnke followed with back-to-back RBI doubles to deep left, with Mike Ueland singling home the third run.
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Kindred 11,
Minot Metros 1
Kindred scored 10 runs in two games Sunday in the Southeast Region tournament. Both games were losses and there were concerns about the Vikings' hitting.
Those worries were alleviated Wednesday. Kindred broke loose for an 11-1 win against the Minot Metros in the opening round of the North Dakota Class A American Legion baseball tournament. The game was called after five innings by the 10-run rule.
"Our bats weren't what we wanted to see Sunday,'' Kindred coach Josh Allmaras said. "We left a lot of runners on base.''
Kindred wasted no time getting its offense in gear, scoring two in the first inning, five times in the second and four more in the third. Kindred sent 25 batters to the plate in the first three innings and, either by hit, error, walk or fielder's choice, 19 of them reached base.
"We're feeling better about our hitting now,'' Allmaras said.
At the top of the order, Nicky Zink and Ethan Lingen had three and two hits, respectively, to account for half of the Vikings' 10 hits. Each scored three runs. Kaden Braden's double was the lone hit for Minot.
