Change Does Pierz Baseball Good Heading into State Tournament

Sometimes, the organization needs to make a change, and that’s exactly what Pierz baseball did mid-season. Sitting at 5-5 on the year in early May, head coach Dylan Pittman opted to bring up several JV players to give the offense some spark.

Since then, the Pioneers are 12-4 and are headed to the state tournament after winning the Section 6AA championship, their first since 2017.

“It was kind of surreal at first,” admitted senior DH/OF/P Brayden Haberman. “Going into the season, our expectations definitely weren’t as high because we had a lot of young guys coming up, but we really put it together towards the end of the year, and I think this team came together very nicely. All the young guys stepped up big.”

“We brought in a few guys from JV: Grady Young, Preston Saehr, Danny Litke,” said senior RF/P Nathan Solinger. “[They] started the year on JV, came up to varsity, had some big hits, a lot of pitching performances, played really well. About halfway through the year, we got a few 10-run wins and then we never looked back from there.”

“This year we’re having a lot more fun,” added senior SS/P Kaden Kruschek. “There’s not as much pressure because we had such high expectations last year and we’re just playing baseball. Once we started beating the big teams it just started clicking, like, we know how good we are now and what we can accomplish.”

During their run to the section title, Pierz knocked off St. Cloud Cathedral, a top-10 ranked team in Class AA. In the state quarterfinals, the Pioneers will be tested once again with a top-ranked team, Section 1AA champ Pine Island.

“I think we’re just going to have to hit the ball well and play clean defense—that’s kind of been the recipe,” said Haberman. “As long as we play clean defense and we’re putting the ball in play, not striking out, having quality at bats, I think we can put ourselves in a position to beat anybody.

“We’ve got to stick to our principles,” Solinger stressed. “Same thing we’ve been doing all year long—go up there, have good at bats. Pitching-wise, go out there, throw strikes, and compete. You know, if they’re going to hit it, they’re going to hit it. So at the end of the day, you got to try your best and do whatever we can.”

The 6-seeded Pierz will be playing Pine Island at St. Cloud’s Dick Putz Field on Wednesday, June 11th at 12:30 p.m.