Elrosa Saints are STATE-bound! Ethan Vogt pitches no-hitter vs. Norway Lake-Sunburg to lift his team to a state berth

Pat Illies and Jonathan Olmscheid are welcomed back to the Saints' dugout after scoring the second and third run of the game against Norway Lake-Sunburg.

Saints' shortstop Matt Middendorf played a huge role in Vogt's no-hit performance against the Lakers, who were regular season champions of the Cornbelt North League.

Kevin Kuefler is shown a blink of an eye away from taking a pitch on his hip in the top of the fourth inning against Norway Lake-Sunburg.

After a two-year absence, the Elrosa Saints amateur baseball team has punched a ticket to the Minnesota Amateur State Baseball tournament, which begins next Sunday (Aug 23) in Arlington, MN.

The Saints (14-11) earned their trip to state with a 3-0 win over the Norway Lake-Sunburg Lakers, who finished 15-9 overall.

In the Region 15C championship game, the Saints were hammered by a powerful-hitting St.Martin team, losing 12-2 in seven innings. The Martins improved to 14-13 overall with the win on Sunday afternoon.

For Elrosa to get out of Region 15C for the "big show" after starting the Stearns County League season 1-4 is remarkable indeed.

For the state tournament draft, St.Martin picked up catcher Jon Lieser of Lake Henry, while Elrosa grabbed veteran pitcher Darren Ogdahl from New London-Spicer.

The Saints open at "state" at 1:30pm on Sunday, August 23rd. They will face the champion out of Region 14C, which is from the area around Alexandria and northward.

Admission for this year's State Tournament will be the very reasonable prices of (Adults) $6.00 and (Students) $3.00 - one game or all day.

The latest information is that Carlos won the Region 14C championship, with Bertha coming in as runners-up. Carlos is a small town just north of Alexandria on Highway 29, on the way north to Miltona/Parkers Prairie/Wadena.

So at 11:00am, St.Martin will face Bertha in their state tournament opener, with the 1:30 game featuring Elrosa vs. Carlos.

Carlos is the real deal, having a 23-1 record coming into this weekend's action. Their only loss of the year was to Clarissa in regular season action in the Resorter's East League. The Cougars defeated Nimrod 9-2 in the state-qualifying game, then beat Bertha 14-4 in 7 innings in tonight's region championship (seeding) game.

This year marks the sixth straight season that Carlos has advanced to the state tournament.

Elrosa last advanced to "state" in 2006, when they lost 2-0 in the opening round to Hampton at Redwing, MN. Hampton, who at the time made their fourth straight state tournament trip, came out of Region 3C in southeastern Minnesota.

Back in 2003, Elrosa also made "state" after winning the Region 15C championship with a win over New London-Spicer.

They also made trips to state in 1988 and 2002.

Full albums of hundreds of pictures from over the weekend will be added to the Sauk Herald online photo gallery during the next few days. The URL is: Sauk Centre Herald- saukherald.mycapture.com

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