On the Bench with Byron Higgin

Mudhens open playoffs against Dumont Saints

Mudhens open playoffs against Dumont Saints It’s playoff time for amateur baseball and the Minneota Mudhens are ranked No. 4 in Class C, Division 9A and will take on No. 5-ranked Dumont at 5 p.m. Saturday in Madison.

If they win, they will play the next day, at 1 p.m., Sunday, also in Madison. If they lose, they will have to wait until Saturday, August 5 to play again in the loser’s bracket. After the first weekend, all games are in Rosen.

A tremendous drive at the end of the season, with three straight wins over Montevideo, Cottonwood and Madison tied Minneota, Madison and Dumont with the same 8-4 league records. Minneota had beaten Madison and Madison beat Dumont and Dumont beat Minneota.

Anyway, the Mudhens ended up fourth with Madison third and Dumont fifth. The nice part for Minneota is that they’ll have plenty of pitching for the playoffs. Danny Hennen heads the staff with Henry Pesch, Tommy Fischer and Zach Nuy also waiting for their turn.

After that, Preston Nuy is finished with Legion ball and could take his turn on the hill as well with Ryan Koopman and others also able to throw. Manager Tyson Sonnenburg was worried about the long (almost two weeks) span between games.

To keep his players sharp the Mudhens scheduled an “exhibition game” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday (last night) at Marshall with the Marshall A’s. “It was just too long between games and I didn’t want our players to get rusty so we scheduled a game to help keep them sharp,” said the manager.

Leading the Mudhens in hitting so far is Adam Durfee with a .384 batting average, four home runs, three triples, seven doubles and a slugging percentage of .644. Preston Nuy is hitting .325; Sonnenburg .323 and Austin Buysse .323. Beau Buysse is also having a good year with a .269 average and he leads the team with 13 stolen bases. Buysse had 18 runs scored and only Durfee has more with 19.

Other batting averages include Henry Pesch at .255; Jordan Beck at .247; Mike Luke at .222; Brock Buysse at .220; Danny Hennen at .207 and Jesse Drager at .169. Koopman is the fastest man on the team and he brings some nice speed to the team when they need it.

Hennen has been the ace of the pitching staff and is expected to start the opening game against Dumont. He has a 6-2 record; an earned run average of 2.95 and has 58 strikeouts and only 13 walks.

Next is Henry Pesch at 2-1 with a 2.66 ERA. He has fanned 41 with 18 walks in just 37 innings. Fischer has a 1-3 record and 3.69 earned run average and he’s fanned 28 batters with 14 walks Zach Nuy is 2-1 with a 3.31 ERA.

The team finished the regular season with an 11-9 over record, a huge turnaround from last year. Also encouraging for the Mudhens is knowing they played a solid game with No. 1 Morris, losing just 3-2 at Morris.

CORRECTION: In last week’s Wynston Boe Invitational Tournament, the Presidents Flight winner was Travis Obe. The Mascot said Travis Boe and that was incorrect.

Byron Higgin

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