Hit by pitch

The Blue Earth Pirates had the hot bats in the 13-60 League Championship game on Sunday, Aug. 2.

Using 15 hits, they downed the Cleveland Condors 14-0 in the game played in Blue Earth.

The win gave the Pirates the outright championship title and a first seed in the Region Tournament.

Blue Earth scored six runs in the first inning, and it would prove to be more than enough.

The Pirates added two more in the second, four in the fifth and two more in the sixth.

“The team was hitting the ball very, very well,” Coach Todd Schmidtke says.

Daniel Woodall led the way, going 3 for 4, including two home runs. Aaron Wendt also nailed a homer, and was 2 for 5. T.J. Schmidtke was 3 for 5.

Both Trent Sonnicksen and Ryan Vereide got just one hit each, but in both cases it was a double.

Two Pirate pitchers were involved in the shut-out, no-hit nearly perfect game.

“Aaron (Wendt) was just one pitch away from being perfect,” Coach Schmidtke says. “He hit a batter for the one base runner they had.”

Otherwise he shut out the Condors in six innings, allowing no hits and striking out nine batters.

Cody Sukalski came in for the top of the seventh and shut down the Condors, getting one strike out.

The win put the Pirates overall season record at 29-5 as they prepared for Region Tournament play.

They were scheduled to play in Montgomery on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 8 and 9.

They will be back in Montgomery this coming weekend, Aug. 15 and 16 for more of the Region Tournament.

Game times depend on whether they won or lost their games this past weekend.

Games are scheduled for 1, 4 and 7 p.m. on Saturday, and at 2 and 5 p.m. on Sunday.