Elrosa Saints are heading to the 'Ship! (VIDEO)

Don't look now! The Elrosa Saints amateur baseball team is heading to the state championship game! They now take on Fairmont in the Class C state title game. This game will be played at 6 p.m. tomorrow, Sunday, September 6 in New Prague. The site is Memorial Park Baseball Stadium, where Elrosa won its first two state ball games. They are playing in their 13th state tournament in program history. Overall, this is Minnesota's 103rd state amateur baseball tournament. How about that!!

This marks the first time in Elrosa history that the baseball team will play for a state title. It will also be just the third time in the history of the Stearns County League that a team will play for a state title. It first occurred in 1998, when Richmond took second place. In 2017, Lake Henry also made it to the Class C finals but fell to Kimball.

Box score, Elrosa vs. Hanska:
Elrosa 0 1 0 3 1 0 0 0 1 - 6
Hanska 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 2

In tonight's game:
Tonight, in New Prague, the Saints faced Hanska in the state semifinals. They had a 5-2 lead going into the 9th inning. In the top of the 9th, the Saints scored one more run to make it 6-2. In the bottom of the 9th, Hanska loaded the bases on no outs with two walks and one hit batsman. Jared Cortez, a draftee from Norway Lake-Sunburg, entered as the second relief pitcher of the game. He proceeded to earn three straight strikeouts to seal the win!

Hanska (22-5-1) loaded the bases in the first inning but pushed just one run across home plate on an Elrosa error. They had a runner forced out at home, and the inning ended with a Lakers runner thrown out at home after tagging up on a fly ball to left field.

Elrosa scored once in the top of the second inning on a sacrifice fly-RBI to make it a 1-1 tie. The Lakers pulled ahead with one run scored in the bottom of the second for a 2-1 lead.

In the top of the fourth, Elrosa scored 3 times to gain a 4-2 lead and never looked back.

Overall, the Hanska Lakers left 15 runners stranded. They were held in check for the bulk of the game by Greenwald draftee Grant Moscho, who pitched 7 innings and earned the win with 6 walks and 7 strikeouts. Moscho is a first cousin to B-B-E head football coach Chris Moscho. He threw 136 total pitches and surrendered just 3 hits with no runs.

Derek Wiener and Luke Illies had 3 hits each to lead the offense, while Blaine Fischer and Ethan Mueller each had two hits with two RBI apiece. Altogether, Elrosa launched 13 hits on the Hanska Lakers.

Cortez, a Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg Class of 2024 graduate, is the son of James and Kris Cortez of Lake Johanna Township. Kris (Skarpness) is a B-B-E Class of 1996 graduate, while James was a 1996 K-M-S grad. Just for fun! Here's Jared's Southwest Minnesota State University baseball biography page: https://smsumustangs.com/sports/baseball/roster/jared-cortez/13611.

By the way! Fairmont's 2020 population is listed at 10,487. Elrosa's population stands around 230 people.

Here's a video from the state opener against Pierz back on August 23:


That video was recorded in the bottom of the fourth inning with Payton VanBeck pitching.

In case you missed it...


The Cedar Creek Gospel Band, made up of musicians based in Kandiyohi County, performed for the worship service held at the Brooten Pavilion on Sunday, August 30. The worship was hosted by the Big Grove-Crow River-Grace Lutheran and Trinity-West Lake Johanna Lutheran parishes.

More to come...lots of game notes to review!