The Jackson Bulls qualified Sunday afternoon for the state amateur baseball tournament, edging the Windom Pirates at home 6-5 to win their best-of-three playoff series two games to one.
Windom had forced a game three on Saturday by beating the Bulls, 6-3, after Jackson took game one 7-1 on Wednesday night. Jackson, along with Luverne and Fairmont, will represent Region 13C at the state tourney, which gets underway Wednesday in Jordan, Belle Plaine and Green Isle.
On Sunday, the Bulls went up 2-0 on Windom in the first inning thanks to an RBI single by Carter Snyder and a bases-loaded walk to Seth Busch. Windom came back with a single run in the top of the second, but a Blake Evans RBI hit gave Jackson that run back in the bottom of the frame.
An RBI double from Luke Gilbertson and a run-scoring single from Matt Matson drew the Pirates even, 3-3, in the third. That’s what the score remained until the bottom of the sixth, when Busch connected for a one-out triple and Blaise Jacobsen brought him home with a single. A two-run-double from Kobe Lovell, though, put Windom ahead 5-4 entering the bottom of the seventh. An Evan Olesen single got Jackson even at five-apiece in the seventh, then Busch scored the go-ahead and winning run in the eighth after he doubled and later came home on a wild pitch.
Elsewhere Sunday, Fairmont earned the No. 1 Region 13C seed for state by topping Luverne 11-6 in 12 innings. The Martins had won game two Friday 9-5 after losing Wednesday’s opener 6-5.
Comments