It was a wild, hot weekend of baseball at Hyde Stadium and Kelley Field as Pierre Post 8 14U would host the state tournament and the hometown Eights would make the state championship, but come in second behind Harrisburg MAG.
Pierre would dominate its Friday games beating Brookings Black 18-1 to open the tournament and then beat Tea 14-4 to end the first day. Pierre would be led by Preston O’Bryan’s three RBIs in game one along with Weston Terwilliger, Colt Schilling, Luke Deal, Brogan Kienholz and Jett Brakke each having two RBIs as EJ Rattling Leaf and Bennett Heiss allowed just one hit and one run combined in four innings. Terwilliger would homer in the Tea game as Lucius McCullough had five RBIs and Deal added on another two RBIs. McCullough would get the five inning win on the mound allowing four runs on six hits.
On Saturday, Pierre had to wait until almost midnight to play its lone game to finish pool play because of a lengthy rain delay when the storm came through Pierre. It still would lead to a 13-4 win over Yankton as Schilling this time had five RBIs for the Eights while Kienholz drove in two runs having Pierre go 3-0 and the two seed after pool play.
Pierre would wait until Sunday afternoon to face Rapid City Post 22 after the Cadets beat Rapid City Post 320 in the first round game. Pierre turned 13 runs in the first inning to cruise to a 16-6 win in six innings to reach the state championship. Everything went the way for the Eights as Kienholz had the game high four RBIs while Deal and Schilling each added three RBIs.
However, Pierre then ran into the buzz saw of Harrisburg who scored 10 runs in the bottom of the first to take a 10-1 lead and scored in every inning to the 20-8 win in five innings to take the 14U state title. Everything Harrisburg seemed to be in the gap and to fall as Summit Larson also added a three run homer for Harrisburg. Jaylen Keyes would still drive in five runs for Pierre in the loss as Pierre finishes the season at 30-5.
A well played tournament for the Eights and a big thank you to the grounds crew and field maintenance who worked tirelessly all weekend in the hot weather and limiting how long the rain delay was and what it could have been.
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