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Baseball: Canyon Lake qualifies for Little League World Series
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FarkINDIANAPOLIS — Canyon Lake is Williamsport bound.
The South Dakota state champions from Rapid City defeated Minnesota’s Coon Rapids, 7-1, to advance to the Little League World Series, which starts Aug. 15.
Canyon Lake will be the first team ever from the state of South Dakota in Williamsport.
“I’m just numb,” Canyon Lake coach Doug Simons said. “I never thought this would happen. It’s unbelievable.”
Infielder Logan Anderson said he’s taken aback by what his team has accomplished.
“I thought we’d have a chance to be competitive,” he admitted. “But I never imagined we’d dominate (the Midwest Region) like we did. When all 13 guys hit, we can be a pretty dangerous team.”
Canyon Lake got three straight two-out doubles in the fourth inning to overcome a 1-0 deficit.
With T.J. Nolan on first and two outs in the fourth, pinch hitter Mark Petereit got a Canyon Lake rally started with an RBI double. Matt Minnick followed with his Midwest Region tournament-best sixth double to score Petereit. Immediately following Matt Minnick’s double, leadoff hitter Tanner Simons made the score 3-1 with an RBI double of his own.
Petereit, a reserve, epitomized why Canyon Lake was so successful in Indianapolis, Simons said.
“It was totally typical (of our team),” Simons said. “Everyone has done everything I’ve asked them. The thing about this team right now is everybody is doing (his role), they’re not complaining and they’re playing where we need them. No one’s ever questioned it. It’s been great.”
Simons said that, despite being blanked for the first three innings, he was never concerned that his team’s offense wouldn’t awake.
“It was only one run,” Simons said.
“If it had been five or six, I may have been a little worried. I knew we were going to score some time.”
Canyon Lake added four more runs in the fifth inning, but the three spot in the fourth was all starting pitcher Cale Fierro needed. Fierro gave up three singles in the first inning, but eventually settled into a groove that allowed him to strikeout 12 Coon Rapids batters.
“He threw a few two-strike off-speed pitches in the first inning and they hit that,” Simons explained. “So we decided to stay away from that.”
Minnick and Bill Hendricks went 2-for-2 and scored a run for Canyon Lake. Minnick, Canyon Lake’s ninth hitter, finished the tournament 14-for-17 with six doubles and at least one extra-base hit in all six Canyon Lake games.
“I wasn’t hitting good at the end of the (regular season), and I just started to hit,” Minnick explained. “I worked harder and now I’m hitting better.”
“He hit the ball well the whole series,” Simons said. “In the state tournament, he didn’t hit very well. He came back and worked hard and today it showed.”
Anderson said he thinks expectations will probably be low for his team in the World Series. He believes that his team is capable of shocking the world.
“(The Midwest Region) started to respect us when we started winning,” he said. “All 13 of us can hit and field. Any one of us can come up and hit and get a rally started. We can do anything.”
“I just hope we compete (in Williamsport) as hard as we did (in Indy),” Simons said.
Mark Petereit and Tanner Hagen celebrate the Canyon Lake All-Stars victory over Coon Rapids, Minn., 7-1, on Saturday. The Rapid City team became the first South Dakota team to qualify for the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. (Greg Mengelt/Special to the Journal)
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