By Kip Kovar
Contributing Writer
JORDAN – A quick look at the box score for the Sartell Muskies won’t necessarily look impressive. That doesn’t tell the whole story though.
The Muskies did all of the little things right in their matchup with the Nisswa Lightning and they were rewarded for it picking up a 3-1 win at the Jordan Mini Met to secure their spot on Labor Day weekend.
“I thought we played pretty well,” veteran player Tim Burns said. “We knew with our pitching we are going to be in pretty much every ballgame. As long as we get some timely hits like we did, we should be good to go for the rest of the tournament.”
Runs were hard to come by early on for both teams but the Lightning had their chances in the first two innings. That was until the Muskies showed off their defense, turning two double plays in the first two innings to erase Nisswa’s scoring threats early on. For the game, Sartell turned three double plays.
“That always gets us fired up,” Burns said about double plays. “It’s great for any team but who knows what happens if we don’t get those outs. It could be a whole different ball game. Those are the kind of plays that help us get our hitting going too as we can use that as momentum.”
After being held off the scoreboard through three innings, Sartell broke through in the bottom of the fourth. With runners on first and third, Burns delivered an RBI single to put the Muskies in front 1-0. The one run for Sartell looked like it might be enough but Nisswa showed why its one of the more dangerous offensive teams in the state. A solo home run from Jeremiah Piepkorn in the top of the seventh evened things up but the Muskies had the answer in the bottom half of the eighth.
After a fly ball that was lost in the sun dropped, Sartell got an RBI triple off the wall from Cody Partch to take a 2-1 lead. Burns added another on a sacrifice fly for a big insurance run.
“We got kind of lucky,” Burns said with a laugh. “We didn’t have guys on the bases the whole time but we found the big hits when we needed to. We knew they had the potential to hit home runs and they got one but we kept them in check at the right times and it worked out.”
Burns, playing in his 13th state tournament in a row for the Muskies, knows how special the feeling of getting here is even despite it being an annual tradition.
“It never gets old,” he said. “It’s going to be tough when I finally do hang them up but the atmosphere is awesome. It feels great to keep coming here.”
After knocking off one recent state champion (Nisswa – 2022), another one awaits the Muskies next weekend as they’ll take on the Fairmont Martins (2020 champions).
“I don’t think we’ve ever played that team,” Burns said. “It’ll be a good game. It’ll be a little different how we set up our pitching trying to win four games in a row but we’ll set ourselves up as best we can to make a run at it.”
