Legion Baseball: State tournament caps extraordinary year for Pierz

During the 2016-17 school year, the Pierz Pioneers lost in the semifinals of the Class 3A state football tournament and were runners-up in the 1A state wrestling tournament and in the 2A state baseball tournament.

Pierz caps an extraordinary yearlong run of success this weekend when it plays in the Division II American Legion Baseball State Tournament at Spicer and Paynesville.

Many football and baseball players and wrestlers from those Pioneer teams play for the Pierz Legion whose coach Dylan Pittman says he's been blessed to work with this group. Pittman, who will begin his eighth year of teaching at Pierz this fall, has coached this group in football and baseball since they were in seventh grade.

"Obviously they're an extremely talented group," he said. "You hear that said any time you talk about these guys in any sport. They deserve everything they've had in terms of success because they really do work hard. They play the game the right way. They're a lot of fun to watch.

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American Legion Baseball

Division II state tournament

• Pierz vs. Giant Valley at Paynesville 12:15 p.m. Friday
• Pierz vs. New London-Spicer at Spicer 1:30 p.m. Saturday
• No. 3 seed vs. No. 2 seed at Spicer 4 p.m. Saturday
• No. 4 seed vs. No. 1 seed at Spicer 6 p.m. Saturday
• Third-place game at Spicer 11 a.m. Sunday
• Championship game at Spicer 1:30 p.m. Sunday

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"It's fun to fill out the lineup crowd. I've been blessed to coach them, there's no doubt about that. You're not going to get a group like this too often."

Pittman said this group conducts themselves the proper way on and off the field.

"They're definitely the type of kids you want kids to look up to," he said. "One graduated last year and he's now coaching our VFW team so he's already come back and is giving back to the program.

"We've had good community support. They all have good parents. Their parents are always showing up to the games. It's no surprise (the players) are the way they are because of that."

Since the Pioneers were playing high school baseball through June 19, and due to family activities, Pierz's Legion has played just 10 games this summer but has won them all. It outscored the opposition 92-26 and batted .350 while limiting the opposition to a .194 average.

"It's been a quick, little season here for us," Pittman said. "We knew that it was going to be that way. We had to cancel a couple games because kids had stuff going on, otherwise we would have had a few more games. With high school baseball going as long as it did, a few families got away a little bit."

Familiar names have led Pierz to the District 6 Division II title. Matt Kummet enters the state tournament hitting .760 (19-for-25) with four doubles and 13 RBIs. Lane Girtz, who will miss the tournament after undergoing arm surgery earlier this week, is batting .476 (10-21) with three doubles. Noah Boser, back after his freshman year at Bemidji State University, is hitting .455 (10-22) with 11 RBIs.

Matt Tautges is at .417 (10-24) with four doubles. Luke Girtz and Thomas Funk are also hitting over .400.

On the mound, Alec Lochner is 3-0 with a 2.95 ERA, Tautges is 2-0 with a 1.75 ERA and Kummet is 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA. Preston Rocheleau, one of the Pioneers' top two high school pitchers, has tossed only four innings this summer.

Pierz, which finished fourth in the Division II tournament last year, is in arguably the tournament's most difficult pool with Giant Valley and New London-Spicer. Giant Valley consists of many players from Minnehaha Academy, which beat Pierz for the 2A state championship at Target Field. Pierz beat NLS in the 2A quarterfinals.

"We all know each other a little bit," Pittman said. "It should be exciting. It's a tough draw ... but it is what it is. We get to find out right away what we have. All the teams down there are good."

Pierz is facing a dilemma this weekend. Several Legion players also play for Victory League teams who are in the Region 8C tournament this weekend. Saturday and Sunday Legion games will conflict with Region 8C contests. Pittman said Legion rules prevent players from playing in both tournaments.

"A lot of our seniors are studs for their town teams," he said. "They have split priorities in terms of baseball. Typically Legion takes priority and typically you don't have high school kids leading the way for your town teams. Our kids will have to make a tough decision there.

"We will have enough guys. We will have to have some young guys step up. If (some players) choose to play 8C baseball instead, that's something we're going to have to deal with."