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Raptors walk it off - Dimock-Emery rallies in ninth inning to defeat Castlewood
Dimock-Emery's Phil Johnson scores the game-winning run against Castlewood Ravens at the Class B state amateur baseball tournament on Sunday at Cadwell Park.
(Ryan Deal / 605 Sports)

Raptors walk it off - Dimock-Emery rallies in ninth inning to defeat Castlewood

Aug 11, 2024
  

 

By Jon Akre

605 Sports

MITCHELL — The 27 out is always the toughest to get.

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, the Dimock/Emery Raptors were on their last gasp of the season down 7-3.

With everything on the line, the Raptors sent out Doug “Dougie Barrels” Sudbeck to the plate.

“I’m not going to say his age and how many state tournaments he’s been to, but we were taking a strike and even after he had a strike, he was willing to go two strikes cause he trusts himself,” said Phil Johnson. “The guy has done it time and time again, we call him Dougie Barrels for a reason.”

Sudbeck worked a five-pitch walk on Castlewood’s Gus Steiger, the first of three consecutive walks to load the bases.

“Doug’s either going to get hit by a pitch, rope a single, or get a walk, that’s Doug Sudbeck in a nutshell,” said Sam Pischke. “And it’s usually rope a single or get hit, he doesn’t walk much cause he swings at everything but hey, we’ll take it.”

From then on, it was a miracle in Mitchell.

Jason Schmidt cracked an RBI-single that scored two, Phil Johnson smashed a ball to left-center field to tie the game, and to cap it off, Pischke hit a blooper into right field to drive in the winning run. 


“Quality at-bats, you know we went up there and luckily he gave us some baserunners and let it get started,” said Johnson. “Guys battled and battled and we had some great at-bats, a couple key hits, and here we are.”

Johnson was the winning run on second base when Pischke looped the game-winning single, but all he needed was a chance to get home.

“Go as fast as you can,” said Johnson on the final bang-bang play of the game. “I know my top speed is two to four miles an hour and I have to get there at some point, and as soon as I hit third and Brad’s yelling ‘Go’, I’m like ‘Lord help me let’s get there.’ ”

On the other side of the walk-off, Pischke was more concerned about the scoreboard.

“I was more worried about the score, they didn’t put it on the scoreboard right away,” said Pischke. “I thought it was 7-7 but I wasn’t sure.”

Pischke credits the team’s mental toughness to the comeback victory.

 


“We just never stopped,” said Pischke.  “Our manager had heart surgery, this was for him. He came back just to do this. He gives it his all every year, he doesn’t get any credit but we just battle for him.”

Even down four runs going into the last inning, the veteran Raptors were trying to find a spark offensively.

“We were trying to get fired up, we were kind of dead all night,” said Pischke. “It really wasn’t us. I don’t know if we weren’t ready to go or what, I mean it’s a state game, we’ve been here before. We weren’t taking them for granted by any means, we just didn’t play the best today.”

But sometimes, even your best performance is enough to get by with just a little luck.

“State tournament is win-or-go-home, and anytime you can win a single game let alone a second one in dramatic fashion,” said Johnson. “They were telling me ‘Get down’, and I got down as quick as I could then all of a sudden there’s cleats all around me.”

For the Raptors, Pischke batted 4-for-4 with a walk and an RBI, Colton Plagmann drove in a run on a hit and a walk, Jason Schmidt drove in two runs on a hit and a walk, while Johnson drove in two runs on two hits.

Castlewood’s Alex Gauer drove in two runs on two hits and a walk, Steiger tallied three hits and a walk, Peyton Garbers (Clark pick-up player) drove in a run on two walks, Nate Phinney had an RBI, Blayne Schliesman had two hits, while Kegan Tvedt drove in a run on a single in the loss as well.

Dimock/Emery will have to recuperate and reset following Sunday’s emotional and dramatic victory, as they move on to the quarterfinals to take on the Larchwood Diamonds on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

“We’re going to enjoy this one, you got to enjoy every state tournament win,” said Johnson. “But it’s time to refocus, but the nice thing is we’ve got a few days, you’ve got to get your emotions in-check. We’ve got another game against a really quality team, Larchwood hasn’t even played a nine inning game in the state tournament yet, so we’ve got a heck of an opponent coming up.”
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