By Owen Patterson

MINOT, ND – Nothing could stop the offenses at Corbett Field on Tuesday night. After a back-and-forth affair, the Minot Hot Tots would come up just short, losing to division-leading Willmar, 13-11.

The Stingers were the first to strike, going for two runs in the first inning. Before Minot could get on the board, Willmar had scored again, leading 3-0 heading to the bottom of the third inning. In the home half of the third, the Hot Tots got started with singles by Cody Grebeck and Jonah Shields, followed by walks to Tristan Moore and Wyatt Reginato, scoring Minot’s first run of the night. The next batter, Mateo Serna would bring in two more on a single to tie the game at three. Following in Serna’s footsteps, Evan Dempsey put the Tots in front, 4-3 with an RBI single.

Now in the lead, the Hot Tots turned to Thomas Leiden out of the bullpen. Leiden would struggle on the mound, allowing six runs on three hits and three walks while recording one out. The Stingers would not stop there, restarting the fourth inning rally before Andrew Sojka left the yard with a three-run home run. After the dust settled, the Stingers had themselves a 12-4 lead.

Needing a quick comeback, the Hot Tots would score two in the bottom of the fourth on RBIs by Shields and Serna. On the pitching side, Minot got a scoreless fifth inning from Ray Keane and two more shutout frames from Will Smith. The Tots offense would return in the seventh, using a two-run double by Sam Holthaus and sacrifice fly off the bat of Keanu Jacobs-Guishard to cut the lead in half, 12-9.

Smith continued to shine on the mound, tossing four innings of one run baseball for the Hot Tots. The late-inning relief pitching kept Minot within striking distance. At the end of eight, the Tots trailed 11-13. After getting another scoreless inning from Smith, the Hot Tots came up to the plate in crunch time.

Pinch-hitter Adam Berghult lead off the inning with a walk and was pinch-ran for by Caden Parker. With one out, Jonah Shields would reach on a fielder’s choice. Down to Minot’s last strike, Tristan Moore was hit by pitch, keeping the Corbett Field crowd believing. Wyatt Reginato was walked on four pitches and Willmar went to the bullpen, taking out their closer Andrew Baumgart, one out away from a save. With the bases loaded and two outs, Stingers relief pitcher Aiden Hansen faced Mateo Serna. Hansen would strike out Serna looking to end the game.

The Hot Tots were close to overcoming the early Stinger scores, but drop to 7-12 on the season with a doubleheader on the way Wednesday. First pitch of game one between the Tots and Stingers is at 9:05 am with game two getting underway at 6:35 pm.

Tuesday night’s First Command Play of the Game was made by Cody Grebeck, who tripled and scored a run in the fourth inning.