The Hastings Hawks play around 30 games each year, but none are more crucial than the six they play against their three Classic Cannon Valley League (CCVL) Class C opponents, the Red Wing Aces, Cannon Falls Bears and Lake City Serpents. Currently, the Hawks lose the tiebreaker with Red Wing and hold a one game lead over both Cannon Falls and Lake City with a lot of baseball yet to be played.

The Hawks travelled to Dundas to take on the Dukes on June 21. Memorial Field in Dundas was one of last year’s State Tournament Sites and it is a beautiful facility that featured a lot of things that could modified to work in Hastings if there was ever a desire to host a state tournament.

The game started with the Hawks bats on fire in the top of the first. Jack Nelson drove in Jordy Horsch with a single, Blake Warner hit a sacrifice fly scoring Jackson Schaffer, Cole Benson followed Warner hitting another sacrifice fly scoring Nelson and Noah Paulseth singled scoring Jackson Tessman giving the Hawks the early 4-0 lead. Dundas cut the lead in half in the bottom of the first to make the score 4-2.

The Hastings bats were kept quiet in the second inning, but Dundas cut into the Hawks lead once more bringing the score to 4-3. Hastings grabbed one back in the top of the third when Mitch Iliff drove in Warner on a single, but Dundas was not willing to let it go for very long, taking one back in the bottom of the third.

With the score 5-4 in favor of the Hawks, Dundas made a pitching change to keep things close. It worked in the top of the fourth, keeping the Hawks off the scoreboard for only the second time this game. Dundas, however, was starting to figure out Tommy Ritt by the bottom of the fourth, scoring two to take the lead for the first time at 6-5. Ritt was replaced by Ben Teigland midway through the third and Teigland shut the Dukes down.

In the top of the fifth, Tessman drove in Warner on a single and Paulseth followed that with a double scoring Tessman giving the Hawks the lead once again, this time 7-6. The switch to Teigland was looking like the perfect thing to do, but two Hawks errors allowed three unearned runs to score in the bottom of the fifth flipping the lead back to Dundas, 9-7.

Brendan Krueger replaced Teigland on the mound, and he also did a great job dealing for the Hawks allowing only one run in three innings pitched. In that same time, the Hawks scored two in the seventh on a single by Tessman which tied the game 9-9. Schaffer singled in the top of the seventh to regain the lead 10-9, but the Dukes scored one in the bottom of the eighth to tie the game 10-10.

Manager Shawn Matson made the switch to Cory Wolters to hopefully close the game out. Wolters pitched a decent amount during his time in junior college and he has a strong arm. For the Hawks, his strength has always been center field. Because he is such a strong fielder, it has been hard to justify pulling him from that position to pitch. The addition of Jack Nelson this season has given the Hawks some flexibility with the outfield. Wolters had pitched one inning prior this season and this was a great opportunity to get him more reps on the mound.

Unfortunately for the Hawks, Wolters faced a determined Dukes lineup and an umpire that was very inconsistent with his strike zone, that combination did not help Wolters on the mound. With two outs, and runners on first and second, the Dukes batter walked to load the bases. There may have been a questionable call in there to extend the at bat, but that is how things can go at the amateur level. The previous batter obviously rattled Wolters and during the final batter of the evening, he threw a wild pitch that scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. This was the second time in two years that the Dukes had walked off the Hawks in Dundas.

While it is always a great thing to win games, especially league games, the games for Hastings against Class B teams really only mean one thing, a tie breaker at the end of the season. Sure, it’s a feather in the cap to beat a Class B team, especially one that is continually a state contender, but it is not essential, and a lot of really good things happened in the game for the Hawks. The most important was experience for both the newcomers as well as the returning veterans.

That experience helped the Hawks just two days later when they travelled to Lake City for a Class C matchup. This game meant significantly more in the grand scheme of things. Jordan Jeske, the Hawks ace, earned the start on the mound against the Serpents Ace Ryan Wolfe. Jeske pitched masterfully holding the Serpents to two runs on six hits. He struck out 10 and walked only 4.

Hastings scored one to start things off, Wolters scored the run when Warner hit a single, but Lake City tied things in the bottom of the first. In the bottom of the third, Lake City took the lead 2-1, but that is all the offense they would be allowed to have. The game looked as if it was going to be a pitcher’s duel, but Hastings never panicked knowing their bats were so successful against the Dukes, they knew it would be a matter of time before they would spring to life and boy oh boy did they ever.

The Hawks went on a seven-run tear in the top of the sixth inning. With the bases loaded, Wolfe walked Iliff scoring Warner for the first run. That is when Wolfe pulled himself when he walked off the mound looking very unhappy with his performance and the Hawks pounced on his replacement. Paulson hit a hard grounder to third and the ball was mishandled, scoring Benson and keeping the inning alive. Nick Horsch was walked scoring Tessman. Wolters doubled scoring Iliff and Paulseth, then Nelson singled scoring Horsch and Wolters and the Hawks suddenly had the lead 8-2.

Hastings added two insurance runs, one in the seventh when Paulseth singled scoring Iliff and one in the ninth when Jake Sandquist hit a sacrifice fly to score Evan Krhin extending the lead to 10-2. Ben Teigland came in to close the game for Jeske giving up one run for the final to be 10-3 Hawks.

Aside from the win to keep the Hawks in the hunt for the league championship, the good news is, they come home for the last two games in June and nearly the entire month of July. The exceptions for July are a scheduled game at Miesville to end the season and a make up game at Hampton due to the Hampton game being postponed a second time by the Cardinals.

The Hawks take on the Class B Rochester Royals, last year’s state champions, on June 28 and then Lake City comes to town on June 30, both at 7:30 p.m. at Veterans Park. Hastings will host the Hudson River Rats on July 5 after the holiday weekend, that one is also scheduled at 7:30 p.m.

Some notes on the CCVL and the differences between Class C and Class B for those that are curious.

The CCVL consists of two divisions, Class C as explained at the start of the article, and Class B which has the Miesville Mudhens, Rochester Royals, Dundas Dukes, Northfield Knights and Hampton Cardinals. The difference between the two classes starts with the city population and the recruitment of players. One point is assigned per 1,0000 population. Players from the teams dedicated area, either city limits or school district do not count against the point cap. A town like Hastings has 22 points just from the town’s population whereas Miesville only has one point for population. Hastings has 13 player points to Miesville’s 105 player points largely because the Miesville players tend to come from the Woodbury area. The criteria for Class C is 45 points or less, anything more and the teams are placed into Class B.

The CCVL is one of the strongest leagues overall in the State of Minnesota with at least one CCVL team appearing in the state tournament championship game seven out of the last eight years. Last year, the Rochester Royals took the Class B title and Miesville has won two of their three appearances.

Both Class B and Class C teams play each other twice in the season. The B versus C games are played as part of the second level tiebreaker if needed in their own class seedings come playoffs, and they give players an opportunity to get the four required league games in for playoff eligibility. The need for a tie breaker in Class C is currently unknown with the number of games left to play for the four teams.