The Hastings Hawks regular season has come to a close with two losses against two very good teams. First, they took on the Red Wing Aces in Red Wing on Wednesday the 17th, a 5-0 loss, and then they played host to a top ten Class B team on Friday the 19th, the Lyon’s Pub Warriors. That game finished 12-2 in eight innings with the Warriors on top. The loss to Red Wing locked up the Classic Cannon Valley League (CCVL) Class C season standings. Red Wing (3-1) in first place, Hastings (2-2) in second place and Cannon Falls (1-3) in Third.
Johnny Teigland had the start on the bump for Hastings at Red Wing and he was facing the Aces’ ace pitcher, the dominant Aaron Johnson. The two pitchers could not be any more different from each other. At six feet six inches, Johnson towers over Teigland and their pitching style is different, too. Teigland throws strikes for contact and relies on his defense to produce outs. His accuracy and change of pace tend to keep hitters off balance along with a solid curveball. Johnson throws hard and will blow a fastball by hitters along with a nasty two-seam fastball that frequently fools hitters.
The game started as a pitchers’ duel. Teigland held the Aces to four hits through five innings with three strikeouts. Johnson logged nine strikeouts allowing two hits through five innings and that is when the Aces offense took over. Red Wing scored five in the bottom of the sixth inning helped largely in part by three batters being hit by the normally accurate Teigland.
That sixth inning was all the Aces needed, Johnson kept the Hawks batters befuddled at the plate and Brendan Kruger shut down the remaining batters he faced in relief of Teigland and the game finished 5-0 in favor of the bad guys.
Overall, Johnson struck out 13 throwing 85 strikes and 25 balls compared to the Hawks pitchers striking out five. The Hawks combo of Teigland and Kruger walked three batters total and overall, the boys threw 75 strikes to 51 balls.
The loss locked Hastings into second place in the CCVL and gave them the third seed for the Region 5C playoffs. The Region 5C playoffs take place over three weekends, the first weekend is held in Red Wing and it is the preliminary tournament where nine teams are trimmed down to four teams for the second weekend. The third place Cannon Falls Bears from the CCVL will face the Twin Rivers league in the first week.
The top four teams from that bracket will join Red Wing (1), Stewartville (2), Hastings (3) and Wannamingo (4) in the final double elimination bracket for a trip to state. The second bracket will start in Hastings with four games on August 3 and four games on August 4. The final four games of the championship bracket will be held in Owatonna on August 9 and 10. Two teams from Region 5C will make the state tournament.
The final regular season game for Hastings ended up being a 12-2 thumping from a top 10 Class B team, the Lyons Pub Warriors. Hastings jumped out to an early 1-0 lead thanks to a triple that was crushed to right center by Mitch Iliff who was driven in by Jackson Schaffer.
The lead held until the top of the third when the Warriors played small ball having seven hits scoring four. The Hawks second run came in the bottom of the third. It was also driven in by Schaffer after Drew Jenkins reached on an error. That was all the offense the Hawks could muster, and Lyons Pub went on to win 12-2 in eight innings.
The Hawks regular season may be over, but Veterans Park has plenty of baseball left this year. The Legion Sub-State Tournament will start July 23 and go through Saturday, July 27. The weekday games are 4:30 and 7:00 p.m. with the Saturday games taking place at 1:00 p.m. with the second game to follow if needed. There are more games that same weekend, July 26-28. HYAA has their in-house tournament, and the Hawks will host the second week of the Region 5C tournament with four games on August 3 and four games on August 4. Then fall ball in September and October.