By Jon Akre

605 Sports

“As a team, everybody had each other’s backs,” Zerr said. “I didn’t do the best in the first game and my teammates picked me up.”

The Lynx started to crawl back with three runs in the third and fourth innings, but were running out of time. Nolan Pudwill’s seventh inning sac-fly scored the fourth run for BV, but also the second out of the inning.

With their backs against the wall, Zerr came up clutch, drawing a nine pitch walk, fouling off three pitches in a two-strike count.

“One of the big things from him was all of a sudden late in the game we had two outs and he came up to bat and he fouled off seven pitches and was kind of relaxed and in the moment, and he led us that game,” VanHeel said. 

Zerr’s walk allowed tournament MVP Ryland Carroll to line one into right field to score the tying runs of the game. Maxwell Peters, Bryton Stroh, Grady Gindorff and Jack Blomgren each found their way on base after Carroll’s single to cap off a seven-run inning for the cardiac Lynx.

“We showed that there was never a time that was too big or too small,” said VanHeel. “I believed in them so just being even keel and just trusting the process and the kids is where we’re at.”

The 6-0 deficit Brandon Valley faced in the first two innings of the game was just one of two late-inning comebacks the Lynx made during their three state tournament games.

Cruising to a 9-2 victory over Sioux Falls Lincoln in the semifinals, BV met a red-hot Sioux Falls Jefferson team hungry for its first-ever state baseball championship.

The Lynx threw the first punch, but a consistent Cavalier offense continued getting base runners on and over to take a 4-1 lead after four innings. The Lynx plated a run on a Carroll single in the fifth, but it was crunch time once again.

“It was only three runs and we came back from six in the first game so that’s what we were telling each other in the dugout,” Zerr said. “We’ve come back from worse and we have each other’s back.”

Adversity is a common theme among state championship teams. Nothing comes easy and the road to the top of the mountain isn’t easy. And for the Brandon Valley Lynx, who lost to Lincoln in the state semis last season, they were ready for the challenge.

“We were here last year and we lost to Lincoln in a tough game and a lot of these guys remember that and they remember that feeling,” said VanHeel. “It’s one of those things that, we’ve been here before, we’ve been challenged. Just got to go play our game.”

The Lynx scored four runs in both the sixth and seventh innings to pull away from Jefferson, with sophomore pitcher Caleb Severin slamming the door on the state championship victory.

“It’s kind of been who we are,” VanHeel said. “One of my biggest fears is that they don’t realize their potential that they could have. It’s not that we’d lose but the fact that we’d never see what we are actually capable of and those guys continued to do that.”

For a team that was down to its last strike of the season in the quarterfinals, facing a three-run deficit late in the state championship, the cardiac Lynx got the job done.

“As a team we overcame so much adversity and we were ready for this moment,” Zerr said. “We came in here really hot, eight wins straight, and we got it done. We had full confidence in ourselves.”