Bemidji Blue Ox Amateur Baseball Continues State Tournament Run This Weekend

Bemidji Blue Ox amateur baseball finds themselves in the second round of the Class C state tournament after knocking off Litchfield 4-2 in last weekend’s opening round.

Now, the team is looking forward to continuing the momentum this weekend against New York Mills, because a win puts them into the round of 16 and the final weekend of play at the state tourney.

“We got a lot of new guys on the team from years past that were not a part of the experience of being there four or five straight years in a row, where it was good to get back there and kind of earn it this year,” said CF Cody Rutledge. “Felt good for the team to come through the back door, win four games in a row in the region tournament then get back to the state tournament.”

Rutledge added, “This weekend’s going to be another grind. We’re going to have great pitching on the mound here. We’re gonna have another great performance out of Isaiah [Biehn], and then hopefully we got ups all coming out of the pen here throwing strong, and then we got to scratch a couple of runs across with our offense.”

“The mantra all year has been, ‘No one’s going to beat us at our best,’ right? So if we pick up the baseball and we have competitive at-bats, we’re a really tough team to face,” said 1B/C Bazil Zuehlke. “During the state tournament, I mean, you really are playing yourselves. You run into good arms every single game. You run into teams that can hit every single game. Every team deserves to be down there. So I think piecing together at-bats, picking up the baseball, and a good pitching performance puts you into every game.”

The Blue Ox finished the regular season 19-2. This is their eighth state tournament appearance in the last decade – in 2020 they made a run to the elite eight, and in 2017 they had a final-four run.

They will play the New York Mills Millers on Sunday, August 25th at 1:30 p.m. in Belle Plaine.