Parker Erickson got the first 20 outs and Breck Bloom came on for the final out of the game to complete the combined no-hitter as they blanked the Bagley Flyers and led Sacred Heart to an 8-0 victory.
The Eagles struck in the first inning to take an early lead. Sam Gapp singled with one out and got to third on an error and scored on an RBI groundout from Ethan Arntson. “They did what I thought we had to do to have a chance to win,” said the Eagles Head Coach Paul Bethke. “We did leave some runners out there some innings, but we hit the ball well and played good defense behind Parker.”
Sacred Heart got another run in the second inning. Nick Brundin led off with a single and got to second on a sacrifice bunt. He stole third and then came into score on a bad throw by the catcher a couple pitches later to make it 2-0. “We stress baserunning and we did a good job of that today,” said Coach Bethke.
The Eagles continued their scoring ways in the third inning with three more runs. Cullen Rohrich led off getting hit by a pitch. He stole second and scored on Sam Gapp’s RBI single. He moved to third on a wild pitch and a stolen base. Gage Wavra was hit by a pitch and his courtesy runner, Mike Gapp, stole second. A walk loaded the bases for the Eagles. A double play was turned on the next batter, however, Sam Gapp came in to score and Mike never stopped running from second and he scored as well, sliding in just ahead of the tag to give Sacred Heart a 5-0 lead. “Mike is one of those super aggressive runners. We are always going to get 100 percent from him and he’s always trying to get as far as he can on the bases,” explained Coach Bethke. “It is very important for our offense even if he’s just a courtesy runner for us. We see that as an advantage because he is so good on the bases.”
The Eagles scored for the fourth consecutive inning as they added another run. After the first two batters were retired, Parker Erickson singled, Cullen Rohrich reached on an error, and Sam Gapp got his third single to score Erickson to make it 6-0.
Erickson continued his stellar game out on the mound. He retired the first 14 batters he faced before allowing a walk after being up 0-2 on Alex Rolfson. Yet, through five innings, Bagley still did not have a base hit. “In a game like this you want to keep the pitch count low and he did that,” said Coach Bethke.
The Eagles got a couple more insurance runs in the sixth inning. Rohrich led off with a base hit to left field. Sam Gapp followed him with his fourth hit of the game, a double to right-center field, to score Rohrich. “It’s one of those days where you probably wish you were playing three games today,” said Coach Bethke. “He must seen a pretty big baseball coming in today.” Gapp stole third and came in to score on a groundout off the bat of Ethan Artnson for a 8-0 lead.
The Flyers were again unable to get a runner in the sixth inning as Erickson remained sharp getting another 1-2-3 inning. In the seventh inning, Erickson was able to get a couple of quick outs and was one out away from completing the no-hitter, but he reached a pitch count number that he needed to stay under so he was relieved by Breck Bloom. “It was really hard to take him out there but it’s all about next week. We have a doubleheader for points on Tuesday and 100 percent we need him available,” explained Coach Bethke. “The plan was to probably get him out a little earlier today but he was obviously rolling pretty good and we were going to give him every chance he had to finish it off.” Bloom came on and got a looking strikeout against the only batter he faced to finish off the combined no-hitter for the Eagles and give them an 8-0 win. “We just talked about that where we might have to do this if we run out of pitches on the high end where we still need to get that last out… so we need to use this as preparing for tournament play where you might have to get that final out,” added Coach Bethke. “It’s not always easy to do so we learned a lot just from that.”
The Sacred Heart Eagles improve to 12-1 this season and will have an important doubleheader next week in terms of points and seeding.
The Bagley Flyers drop to 8-8 this season. They will host Cass Lake-Bena on Monday.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R | H | E | |
| Sacred Heart | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Bagley | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | |
| Parker Erickson- Sacred Heart | 6.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Breck Bloom- Sacred Heart | 0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Brett Merschman- Bagley | 4.0 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| James Witczek- Bagley | 3.0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
For Sacred Heart
Sam Gapp- 4 for 4, double, 3 RBI, 3 runs, 3 stolen bases
Ethan Arntson- 1 for 3, 2 RBI
Cullen Rohrich- 1 for 3, 2 runs, 2 stolen bases
Parker Erickson and Nick Brundin- 1 hit and 1 run each
For Bagley
Alex Rolfson- 1 walk
