ST. PATRICK — The Rochester Royals came within a run of knocking off the No. 2 seed in the Section 1A amateur baseball playoff quarterfinals.
Thursday, the No. 7-seeded Royals did one better, going on the road and earning a convincing 6-2 win against the top-seeded St. Patrick Irish to qualify for the Class A state tournament.
First, the Royals will play at No. 6-seeded Elko at 2 p.m. Saturday to determine which seeds those teams take into next week’s state tournament.
No. 5-seeded Miesville blasted No. 2 Dundas 21-5 in seven innings Thursday to win the Section 1A championship and the top seed from the section in the state tournament. Dundas will be the No. 2 seed out of Section 1.
The winner of Saturday’s Rochester-Elko game will be the No. 3 seed from Section 1 at the state tournament, and the loser of Saturday’s game will be the No. 4 seed.
No matter what seed they get, for the Royals, Thursday’s win was vindication after nearly taking down Dundas in the quarterfinals last Friday, falling 14-13 in that game, at Dundas.
The state tournament brackets for Classes A, B and C will be revealed on Sunday, Aug. 10, at 7 p.m. on the
Minnesota Baseball Association’s YouTube channel
. The Class A state tournament is set for the weekends of Aug. 15-17, Aug. 22-24, and Aug. 29-Sept. 1. This year’s tournaments will be hosted by Brownton, Gaylord, Hutchinson, and Glencoe.
The Royals never trailed in Thursday’s game, and answered St. Patrick every time the Irish threatened to pull closer.
Rochester took the lead for good — scoring all the runs it would need — in the top half of the third inning. Rochester broke a scoreless tie in that inning, when leadoff man Spencer Kober was hit by a pitch, then center fielder Easton Fritcher followed by blasting a two-run home run to right field. Two batters later, Logan Milene drove an 0-2 pitch over the center field wall to make it a 3-0 game.
St. Patrick got on the board with one run in the bottom of the fourth, but Rochester got that run right back in the top of the fifth when Milene blasted his second solo homer of the game for a 4-1 lead.
St. Patrick pulled within 4-2 in the bottom of the fifth, which is how the score remained until the top of the ninth. That’s when the Royals scored two runs with two outs. The Irish intentionally walked Milene with two outs and no one on base. The next batter, Drew Block, also walked, then Michael Michalak reached on a fielder’s choice. That set the stage for Nick Bowron, who delivered a base hit to right, driving in two runs and extending the lead to 6-2.
Thane Meiners then pitched a hitless bottom of the ninth, allowing just one base runner, on a one-out walk, while getting all three outs in the inning on strikeouts.
Meiners came on in relief of Fritcher, who threw two scoreless and hitless innings of relief, allowing one walk and recording four of his six outs on strikeouts.
Starter Alex Miller was also strong for Rochester. He went six innings, allowing two runs (both earned) on six hits, with three walks and eight strikeouts.
Milene led the Royals at the plate, with a pair of homers, three runs scored and two RBIs. Fritcher was 3-for-5 with a double, a homer, a run scored and two RBIs.
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