Blast 2nd in State MMFL State Tournament

The Minnesota Blast U-18 girls fastpitch team from Cloquet took second place this weekend at the MMFLState Fastpitch Tournament in St. Cloud.

The Blast opened with a 4-3 come-from-behind win over the Moorhead Crush.  The Blast led 2-0 after one inning, but gave up three runs in the third inning.  As they did in all of their four wins they then fought back for two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to grab a 4-3 win.  Chandler Beaupre was the winning pitcher and added two hits with two rbi’s.

In their second game the Blast won in a 6-5 come-from behind victory over the Minnesota Chaos. Trailing 4-2 in the bottom of the last inning the Blast scored two runs to tie the game at 4-4 to send it into extra innings.  With the Internation tie-breaker in effect, the Chaos were able to put a runner on second base to start the inning and they eventually scored to grab a 5-4 lead.  The Blast then scored a pair of runs on a two-run single by Devan Masessa to win the game. Kaylee McMillen pitched five innings, while Beaupre pitched the final three to take the win. Beaupre, Breanne Baker and Abby Wangen each had a pair of hits in the win.

In the final game against the Minnesota X-Plosion on Saturday night the Blast trailed 3-0 heading into the bottom of the second inning, but bounced back and tied the game in the bottom of the second.  The Blast added two more runs in the bottom of the third and then hung on for a 5-3 win. Beaupre notched the pitching win, while adding a triple in the victory.

On Sunday the two lone undefeated teams met with the Duluth Thunder taking an 8-0 win.  The game saw the Thunder hold a 3-0 lead through five innings before exploding for five runs in the final two innings of play. 

The loss put the Blast in the losers bracket of the double-elimination tournament against the Minnesota Twisters which knocked off the XPlosion and Buffalo prior to playing the Blast.  It turned out to be by far the wildest game of the tournament and another game in which the Blast had to come-from-behind three different times!  The Blast fell behind 4-0 after the first inning, but rallied to tie the game 4-4 in the bottom of the second inning.  In the top of the third the Twisters struck for two runs to go up 6-4, but again the Cloquet squad bounced back in the bottom of the third to score three runs and take a 7-6 lead.  In a wild see-saw affair the Twisters put up three more runs in the top of the fourth inning to go ahead 9-7, but the Blast added two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to tie the game at 9-9,  The bottom of the fourth was the last inning of regulation because of a time limit.  That sent the game into the International Tie Breaker rule with the Twisters placing a runner on second base and nobody out.  Somehow the Blast managed to get out of the inning with no runs being scored and they then scored the winning run when Jade Benko was sacrificed to third by Katrina Smith and scored on a fly ball to the outfield by Baker.  Benko was 3-for-3 in the game and the Blast had huge two-out hits by Wangen and Masessa in the third inning and Wangen again in the fourth inning to tie the game each time with two outs. 

The championship game saw a rematch against the Thunder and with the Blast falling 8-6, but it was another wild game in which the young Cloquet kids would not quit!  The Blast led 1-0 after one, trailed 2-1 after two, led it 3-2 after the top of the third, but trailed again 4-3 after three.  Then the Blast scored two in the top of the fourth and led it 5-4 before falling behind 7-5 in the fifth.  The Blast rallied down 8-5 in the seventh and got another run but this time their rally came up short against a very good Thunder team.  McMillen took the loss on the mound.  Beaupre had three hits, Baker two hits, Wangen had two hits and Langenbrunner two hits.

The Blast will play in the ASA Northern National Tournament on July 31st-August 3rd in Rochester, Minnesota.

Northland Sports Online