DASSEL – An item as simple as a Target bag set the tone for the Watertown-Mayer baseball team this season.
On the first day of practice, Royals head coach Ryan Trucke and his assistants showed up wanting an answer from their players. Expecting to hear that the ultimate goal for the season would be to make it to state, Trucke and his coaches were surprised by their answers. After each player made it clear the goal would be to win state this year, Trucke and his coaches took out a Target bag to symbolize where their final game of the season would be played – Target Field

The Royals moved one step close to that goal as they captured the Section 5AA title with an impressive 7-2 win over Glencoe-Silver Lake Thursday. The Panthers were the defending Class AA state champions.

“The very first day of practice I asked them what the goal was,” Trucke said. “ I was expecting them to say to go to state. The first guy and every guy I looked at said win state. It wasn’t just to get there. They had all thought about it independently and maybe talked about it, but they knew they had something special too.”

“Coming into the season, we knew we had something special,” Connor Donovan added. “ Last year we did pretty good but had a rough first round of the playoffs. This year we came in with a lot of confidence.”

The confidence for the Royals showed as they jumped out to an early lead over the Panthers in the Section 5AA title game. W-M came out ready to play as they held G-SL without a hit for the first four innings and held a 4-0 lead heading to the fifth.

“We didn’t even talk about it,” Trucke said about the possibility of playing two games. “We just talked about taking care of business and playing defense. Defense never slumps. It was all about one inning at a time. One pitch at a time. We don’t worry about anything beyond that.”

“We just came out to play,” Donovan added. “We knew we had to put on the pressure and make them less aggressive. When they’re down, they don’t bunt or steal as much so it was huge to get a lead early.”

Despite not having a hit through four innings and down four runs, G-SL didn’t go away quietly. After the first out of the inning was recorded, the Panthers strung together five-straight hits to cut W-M’s lead in half. With the bases loaded and still only one out, Trucke turned to Jaren Vogt on the mound and he needed just six pitches to get out of the jam as he started a double play on a comebacker to the mound.

The Royals would respond in a big way. Just eight pitches later, W-M already got one of those runs back as Vogt delivered with an RBI double. The Royals would add on two more in the inning to push their lead back to 7-2 and they never looked back as they showed what they’re made of like they have all season.

“That’s literally how we’ve been all year,” Trucke said. “When we played Rockford, they scored one and we came back with two. These guys are tough and they’re resilient. They don’t panic. That was the best thing about us today. They didn’t panic after they got five-straight hits. They got the outs and came in and took care of business. They did a really good job.”

That’s one thing we’ve talked about all tournament,” Donovan added. “We want to compete. If a team puts up some runs, we always want to respond.”

The season for the Royals has been an interesting one. After losing arguably their best player to injury, W-M hasn’t used that as an excuse for anything. They’ve continued to find ways to win as they’ve gotten contributions from all over the roster to secure their first state tournament appearance since 2013.

“We lost probably our best player (Wyatt McCabe) for the year earlier this season,” Trucke said. “We haven’t missed a beat. Nobody talked about it. Nobody felt sorry for themselves. We just played. Everybody one through nine had hit the ball and contributed in some form or another.”

“It feels amazing,” catcher Nick Anderstrom said. “It was a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun playing with my team. The hard work has paid off. Now we just have to keep working.”

The Royals are a unique team as well. With no real star player on the roster, W-M relies on different players stepping up. A steady showcase of leadership from the seniors has helped them be successful as the entire team is all about one thing – winning.

“It starts with the seniors,” Trucke said. “They’re completely selfless. They always say whatever role you give me, I’m going to do the best I can and if you need more let me know. All the way through, some guys were playing out of position when Wyatt got hurt and nobody blinked an eye. If you want me to play there, I’ll play there. They’ve been awesome. To them, it’s just about winning. You can’t ask for anything more than that.”

The Royals will wait to see what seed they are for the Class AA state tournament. Brackets will be released Saturday and W-M will open the tournament Tuesday, June 14 in St. Cloud at Dick Putz Field.

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WATERTOWN – It was safe to say Abby Otterness had things working for the Watertown-Mayer softball team. The junior ace pitcher for the Royals tallied a new season-high 14 strikeouts as part of her impressive 2-0 shutout of Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted Monday.

“When she’s on, she’s on,” Royals coach Bethany Loether said. “I’d argue she’s one of the best pitchers in our conference. She’s just getting better and better as the season goes on.”

After striking out the side in order to start the game, Otterness got some support from her teammates in their first at-bat of the game. Jada Kostmatka led off the inning with a single. With two outs, Otterness helped herself out with an RBI single to put the Royals up 1-0.

W-M would add on an insurance run in the bottom of the third thanks to an RBI single from Payton Hecksel. That two-run cushion was more than enough with Otterness in control in the circle.

“We have a good team,” Loether said. “It’s just a matter of finding that confidence in ourselves. I think that’s starting to come out a little bit in the last few games. We know we can do it and win games.”

Otterness finished the game allowing just two hits and one walk. Her season-high 14 strikeouts marked the fourth time this season she’s struck out 10 or more in a game. For the year, Otterness has an ERA of 1.78 in 70 innings of work.

It was the second dominant game for Otterness against HLWW. Earlier in the year, she completed a five-inning no-hitter in a 10-0 win for the Royals.

With the win, W-M improved to 10-7 on the year and has won three straight. With just two games left in the regular season, the Royals are looking to keep their momentum rolling heading into the postseason.

“Right now, our focus is on sections,” Loether said. “Our goal is to play clean ball and get some momentum heading into the playoffs.”

The Royals close out the regular season with a doubleheader against Litchfield. Following that, W-M will have three days of practice to gear up for what they hope will be a deep postseason run.

“We have three days of practice coming up and we haven’t had practice in like two weeks,” Loether said. “ I’m looking forward to just being able to revamp and refocus before heading into the postseason. Our goal is to win every inning right now. That’s our focus and mentality. We want to keep that pressure on. Even though we didn’t quite get them across today, we had people in scoring position pretty much every inning. I’m OK with that because we’re progressing.”

For HLWW, they dropped to 4-14 on the season. The Lakers will close out the season with three home games against Dassel-Cokato, Rockford, and Norwood Young America.

For the complete story and more Herald Journal sports coverage, check out the May 20 edition of the Herald Journal. Click here for subscription information.  Subscribers have full access to this article and more by clicking here. Subscriptions start as low as $1.50 for a two-day subscription, the same price as a newspaper on a newsstand.

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WATERTOWN – Coming into the day, the Watertown-Mayer baseball had a chance to show just how good they are. Mission accomplished.

After holding off Glencoe-Silver Lake in the first of two games, the Royals rode that momentum to a sweep of the top-ranked team in Class AA to stay perfect on the season with a 7-5 and 8-1 win over the Panthers Tuesday night.

“The first game was ugly and we survived,” Royals coach Ryan Trucke said. “I think the big thing was after surviving the first one and getting the win, we came out and played really well in the second game. It was a good day. They’ve dominated this conference for years. To win two against them is huge.”

“It feels great,” senior Albert Rundell added. “They’re a pretty good team. We knew we had to bring the energy and played pretty well today and that’s what we did. We got two wins against a top 10 ranked team.”

After being forced to hold onto the win in the first game, W-M set the tone early that there would be no letting down. Instead of being content with one win, the Royals took control of the game early and never looked back to pick up the sweep in the process.

“This group is really good about refocusing and resetting,” Trucke said. “Whether it’s an at-bat or when they’re pitching, they are really good at that. Good teams split. If you want to be great you win both. That’s all I said between games. Great teams sweep and we did.”

Game one came down to doing all the little things for the Royals. W-M turned three double plays and got out of a big jam in the sixth inning to keep their lead intact. G-SL had runners on second and third with nobody out in a one-run game, Ben Trucke was able to pick off the runner at second for the first out of the inning. A groundball to first turned into a double play for W-M as they escaped the inning without allowing a run on just two pitches.

“What made the difference was the pick-off at second base,” Trucke said. “When Ben came in and picked him off, we got a little momentum going and had some energy. Then we turned the double play to get out of that inning and rolled from there. I think that one play was huge. We always talk about the little things. You got to do the little things to win. There’s a million of them and you’re never sure which one is going to come up big in a game.”

After watching the Panthers let a scoring chance slip away in the top half of the inning, W-M responded in their half of the inning. The Royals tagged on three big insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth to seal the win and hand the Panthers just their second loss of the season.

“Our coach has always preached doing the little things,” Rundell said. “If we do the little things, big things will come. If we do that, everything will fall into place.”

W-M had six different players record at least one hit in the first win of the night. That included the eighth (Connor Donovan) and ninth (Ashton Hecksel) hitters to start a two-out rally in the bottom of the fourth to extend their lead to two after G-SL tied the game in the third.

“We’ve gotten contributions from all over our lineup,” Trucke said. “They’ve done a good job from one to 13. If one guy has a bad day, somebody else is picking them up. It’s huge when everybody can do a job. Those eight and nine guys have been getting pinched hit for lately. They did a good job of getting on base and staying with it. When you get hit for every time, you can just quit. They did a really good job today.”

The Royals rolled in game two to complete the sweep thanks to a gem on the mound from Rundell. He allowed just one run in six innings of work while allowing just three hits.

The win for W-M moves them to 8-0 on the season. Although the pair of wins is nice, the Royals know they have a big stretch ahead with another conference game with Rockford coming up along with a road trip north to take on two of the state’s best.

“We have 12 games in 10 days,” Trucke said. “This is the test. Rockford is always tough. Then Saturday we’re going to see two of the best teams in the state by design. We knew we were going to be a pretty good team this year so that’s a good test for us to see where we measure up.”

“10 games in 12 days (is a lot),” Rundell added. “We’re trying to come out of that 10-0. That means every game is a big game. We’re trying to win big games.”

For the complete story and more Herald Journal sports coverage, check out the May 6 edition of the Herald Journal. Click here for subscription information.  Subscribers have full access to this article and more by clicking here. Subscriptions start as low as $1.50 for a two-day subscription, the same price as a newspaper on a newsstand.

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The first round of games for the Class A state girls basketball quarterfinals are in the book. The day got started with a bang as the Minneota Vikings upset the top-seeded Mt. Iron-Buhl Rangers. Hayfield, the No. 5 seed kept things rolling with a win over No. 4 Cass Lake-Bena. In the final two games, No. 2 Mayer Lutheran and No. 3 Hancock took care of business to reach the semifinals.

Below is a recap of the first day’s action at the Class A state tournament.

Minneota 51, Mt. Iron-Buhl 48 (OT)

MINNEAPOLIS – The magic that is Minneota in March continues. Coming into the Class A state tournament, the Vikings continued their dominance in March knocking off top-seeded Mt. Iron-Buhl 51-48 in overtime to start off the Class A quarterfinals Thursday.

The Rangers led by as many as 12 in the first half but Minneota rallied back. Down by 10 with just over five minutes left to play, the Vikings used a 13-3 run to tie the game at 45. Natalee Rolbiecki had the clutch shot for Minneota, knocking down a 3-pointer with 30 seconds left to tie the game.

The Vikings would complete the comeback in overtime, outsourcing the Rangers 6-3 in the extra frame to advance to the Class A semifinals. It’s the second year in a row Minneota has knocked off Mt. Iron-Buhl in the state tournament.

Leading the way for the Vikings in the win was McKenna Yost with a game-high 24 points. She was 7-for-12 from the field including going 4-for-9 from 3-point range.

Hayfield 67, Class Lake-Bena 57

MINNEAPOLIS – After watching Minneota rally late, it looked as if there was going to be another furious comeback in the second Class A quarterfinal matchup of the day. Down 13 at half to the Hayfield Vikings, Cass Lake-Bena came out swinging with a 10-0 run to get back into the game. In the end, Hayfield showed why they are undefeated on the season, holding on for a 67-57 victory.

The Vikings will take unseeded Minneota in the Class A semifinals Friday at noon at Williams Arena.

Mayer Lutheran 56, United Christian Academy 33

MINNEAPOLIS – The Mayer Lutheran Crusaders were in cruise control in their opening game of the Class A state tournament. Taking on United Christian Academy, the Crusaders jumped out to an early lead and never looked back in a 56-33 victory Thursday.

Mayer Lutheran shot better than 60 percent from the floor in the win. A 26-5 run to open the game had the Thunder playing catchup throughout.

Madeline Guetzkow led all scorers with 17 points. Emma Lade was also in double figures for Mayer Lutheran with 11 points.

Hancock 73, Nevis 38

MINNEAPOLIS – The Hancock Owls came to play in their state tournament opener. A hot start from the field put them in control early and that was too much for the Nevis Tigers to overcome in a 73-38 loss.

Carlee Hanson had a big game for the Owls to help lead her team to the win. She finished with a game-high 29 points including going 5-for-10 from 3-point range. Hancock had three other players score in double figures as they had their offense firing on all cylinders.

Nevis was led by Ava Isaacson with a team-high 14 points in the loss.

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