The Wakefield Trojans earned a victory in the league tournament on Saturday, June 29 after going winless in two games at O’Neill on Friday, June 28 to begin their week of play.
In their most recent game, the Wakefield Trojans took on Hartington in the first round of the league tournament on Saturday, June 29.
In a tightly contested defensive battle, Wakefield was the team to strike first in the bottom of the second inning when Jacob Birkely found his way home on a Cael Johnson single to make the score 1-0 in favor of the Trojans.
The contest remained 1-0 until the fifth, when Adrian Flores roped a single to bring home Timothy Kaufmann and make the score 2-0 going into the sixth inning.
While a two-run lead doesn’t sound like a lot, it was more than enough for Jesse Lundahl, who found a groove on the mound for the Trojans.
Lundahl earned himself a no-hitter in the Trojan win, and finished the contest as close to perfection as a pitcher can come. In seven innings pitched, Lundahl earned 13 strikeouts and faced just 21 batters, the minimum that a pitcher can face in a full-length legion game.
Lundahl also allowed no hits or walks, and never hit a batter. The only batter to reach base off of Lundahl reached on an error.
Behind the strikingly dominant performance of Lundahl, two runs were all the Trojans needed to walk away with a 2-0 victory in the first round of the league tournament over Hartington.
Prior to their big victory over Hartington, the Trojans travelled to O’Neill to take on Ord and O’Neill on Friday, June 28.
In their first game of the day, Wakefield took on the O’Neill Irish in a contest that ran a little longer than what was expected.
The Trojans got out to a solid start against the Irish with Cade Johnson scoring immediately in the first off a single by Jonathan Birkley to give Wakefield a 1-0 lead.
The lead remained 1-0 until the third inning, where Wakefield was able to plate three more runs and grow a comfortable 4-0 lead heading into the fourth.
After Wakefield plated two more runs in the fifth inning, the Irish came alive. O’Neill was able to plate six runs of their own in their half of the fifth inning to tie things up.
After the explosive fifth inning, neither team managed to gain an advantage over the other. In the seventh inning, Wakefield was able to score one run to retake the lead, only for O’Neill to plate one of their own to tie things right back up.
Each team scored one more run in the eighth and ninth innings, before O’Neill was finally able to come out on top with three runs in the bottom of the tenth inning to take home the victory by a final score of 12-11.
Immediately following their bout with O’Neill, Wakefield was forced to take on a fresh Ord squad in game two of the tournament.
The fatigue from their first game showed in the first inning against Ord, who was able to capitalize and score three runs off two hits and an error to jump out to an early lead over the Trojans.
Despite the Trojans best efforts on offense and the numerous runners that reached base, Wakefield couldn’t find a way to get runs on the board as the contest went on.
It wasn’t until the sixth inning that Wakefield was able to get two runs in off a triple by Lundahl, but even after that, the next two batters for Wakefield were put out to stop the run the Trojans attempted to go on.
When the final out was recorded, it was Ord who came out victorious by a final score of 6-2.
The Trojans second round of the Area Tourney was delayed due to field conditions but is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, July 3rd versus Wayne in Wayne.