May 31—GRAND FORKS — The West Fargo Sheyenne baseball team, without an all-state player on the roster, was the No. 7 seed in the EDC tournament.
Those two facts were nothing but motivational fuel Saturday in the championship game of the North Dakota Class A state baseball tournament.
The Mustangs built an early four-run lead, then held off a late Minot comeback to secure a 6-5 win at Kraft Field.
“There are no all-state players on our team so it’s 18 guys but one team,” Sheyenne catcher Jaxon Zavadil said. “We love rallying around each other.”
Sheyenne has now won four of the last five state championships after winning three straight from 2021-2023.
“We didn’t get a kid on the all-state team, but one through nine were pretty good this weekend,” Sheyenne coach Jason Beilke said. “We’ll take a championship over that all day.”
Beilke said the Mustangs ended up as the EDC No. 7 by struggling early this season in one-run games and made too many errors.
“We knew we weren’t a seven-seed caliber team,” said Sheyenne’s Parker Rolfson, who threw the game’s first 5.2 innings and allowed just three hits. “We had some losses early in the season but we had the underdog mentality … prove people wrong continuously.”
Trailing 6-4 heading into the seventh, Minot made things interesting.
After a groundout to start the inning, Sheyenne reliever Landon Zink walked Minot’s Tegan Schindler.
After another groundout for the second out, Zink walked Oliver Deschamp to put two runners on base.
Minot’s Hyrum Maples followed with a single to right field to score one run and cut the lead to 6-5.
The next batter, Tre Stewart, hit a sharp line drive. However, the ball was lined directly to Sheyenne shortstop Max Zenker for the final out.
Zenker, who was 2-for-3 with three RBI at the plate, was stellar in the field throughout the tournament.
“I was definitely very nervous,” Zavadil said. “I have faith in Landon and knew he could do it but when (Stewart) hit that line drive my heart skipped a beat. Luckily Max was there. He’s always there.”
The game took a strange turn in the top of the second inning. After Minot’s Teegan Strand singled on a blooper to the outfield, teammate Aidan Diehl attempted to score on the play.
The throw from Zink, then in the outfield, to Zavadil at home plate set up a major collision between Diehl and Zavadil.
Despite Zavadil bobbling the throw even before he was struck a couple of feet up the third base line, the umpires ruled Diehl, a senior left fielder, was out at home for plowing the catcher and was ejected from the game.
Minot didn’t score until the sixth when the Magicians had a four-run inning to make it 5-4.
“We showed what we’re made of (with the comeback) but sometimes you can’t wait that long,” said Minot coach Pete Stenberg, whose program was searching for a first state title since 2005. “We had to take advantage of things earlier and put the ball in play, like we had done earlier in the tournament.”