Another two eliminations would happen on Thursday at the South Dakota American Legion State tournament as the top seed and host team, Rapid City Post 22 would finish out the night with a win to be the first team to advance to championship Saturday.
In the first game of the day, Jackson McClemans would throw a complete game shutout with a 7-0 win for Watertown beating Rapid City Post 320. Markus Pitkin would hit a three run homer in the bottom of the first and Watertown Post 17 scored five runs in the first inning and held down the potent offense of the Stars to fight off elimination for a second straight day. Pitkin finished the day with four RBIs.
In game two, Yankton would have a dominant game from Sam Gokie on the mound after he didn’t have his best stuff in the first game. Yankton would eliminate Brookings with a 10-1 victory. Gavin Johnson had the first RBI of the game before Jackson Kudera made it 2-0 in the second. Gokie would double to make it 3-0 in the fifth before Jase Bauer hit a solo shot in the sixth to make it 3-1. However, the wheels fell off for Brookings and Yankton scored seven runs in the seventh to cruise to the win.
To close out the night, Sioux Falls West, the two seed, would open up with a sac fly RBI from Boston Bryant to lead 1-0 in the first. Bryant added a second RBI in the third to lead 2-1, but what looked like would be a tailor made double play bounced off the glove of the shortstop and instead of two outs and nobody on, it turned to first and second with nobody out and Post 22 made West pay scoring five runs in the inning to lead 6-2. The Hardhats added another six runs in the seventh to finish a 12-2 win and go to 3-0 in the state tournament and will be playing on championship Saturday.
Watertown will face Sioux Falls West in an elimination game at 5:00 Central Time tonight before Yankton takes on Rapid City Post 22 at 8:00. If Yankton wins, they will face the winner of West and Watertown on Saturday at 12:00 before then the winner taking on Post 22 in the state championship. If Post 22 beats Yankton, the Hardhats will face the winner of West and Watertown in the state championship starting at 12:00 with the Hardhats having to lose twice.
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