MITCHELL – The Garretson Blue Jays defeated the Corsica Horned Frogs 8-1 on Sunday in the final game of the first round of the South Dakota Class B amateur baseball tournament at Cadwell Park.
Aaron LaBrie led the Blue Jays’ victory with a stellar performance on the mound. He pitched a complete game and earned the win, allowing just one run, three hits, no walks and striking out 10. But his game was not without its challenges.
Nathan Swaffar/Mitchell Republic
He spent the first half of the game battling mud that had built up on his cleats from the rain during the first five innings, and had to brush the mud off nearly every other batter. But he said that didn’t stop him from playing his best game.
“You try not to think about it too much,” LaBrie said. “You know the other pitcher is dealing with it, but it was tough. You clean your cleats, and then when you go to the rubber, they’re crusted up again. I know they came out and worked on it, but you’re more worried about someone getting hurt when you start running. The mud is longer than the cleats, so you just slip. You just try not to think about it too much.”
He said the mound never got to the point where play needed to be stopped, but once the rain let up and the mound dried out a bit, it made it all the easier to focus on getting outs.
“It was really annoying knowing if I was going to slip or slide on that pitch,” he said. “But in the last few innings, it hasn’t been a problem.”
Garretson was the first to strike in the bottom of the first inning. With two outs, Dustin Steckler reached first base on an error and kept the inning alive with two outs. After a single, Trey Buckneberg hit a double and scored two runs, leading to an early 2-0 lead. Corsica immediately got one of those runs back in the second inning on a triple by Brady Christoffels, and he scored on a throwing error with two outs at first base.
Nathan Swaffar/Mitchell Republic
The Blue Jays scored another run in the third inning on an RBI single by Dustin Steckler that scored Tayson Swatek. After that, however, things went quiet. Both LaBrie and Corsica pitcher Blake Moke got going and no runs were scored in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings. However, Garretson sealed the deal in the second half of the seventh inning.
Two men reached base early in the inning, on a walk and a hit-by-pitch. Swatek flew out to center, but Jesse Brockhouse scored the first run. Robin Chute scored another run with a double to left field, and then Nick Bonte scored two more runs with a single of his own to extend the lead to 7-1.
Garretson scored another run in the eighth inning to extend the lead to 8-1 going into the ninth inning. LaBrie had a chance to complete his game, and he did so effortlessly with a perfect one-two-three inning to close out the final game of the first round.
In the Blue Jays’ lineup, Swatek, N. Bonte and Buckneberg each had two RBIs, while Chute had three hits and one RBI. Three Horned Frogs had one hit, while Moke pitched six and one third inning, allowing two earned runs and nine hits. He was credited with the loss.
Garretson improved its record to 11-8 this year and will face Four Corners in the next round on Wednesday, August 14. Corsica finished the season with a record of 7-12.
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