Hartington Juniors defeat Pender to reach State title game

HARTINGTON — To make a memorable season just a bit more memorable, the Hartington Post 4 Junior America Legion baseball team advanced to the Class C State Junior American Legion finals with a 7-5 win over Pender Tuesday, July 23.

Post 4 and Post 55 were playing for the third time this season with Pender winning in the Ralph Bishop League Tournament on July 6, 7-3 and Hartington winning 5-2 in a regular season contest in Pender on June 10.

As expected, this was a close game with the score tied 5-5 heading into the top of the sixth inning.

Sam Wiebelhaus changed that in a hurry. He opened the top of the sixth for Post 4 with a double into right field.

Keyton Arens bunted for a single chasing Wiebelhaus to third base and leaving runners at the corners with no outs.

Breiton Whitmire was intentionally walked after a strikeout before Bodie Hochstein made Pender pay with a double into center field which scored Wibelhaus and Arens and left Whitmire on third.

An intentional walk to Hunter Bensen loaded the bases and Whitmire was forced home and thrown out at the plate on a ground ball to the shortstop and pop out ended the threat, but the damage had been done as Hartington took a 7-5 lead.

Bodie Hochstein shut Post 55 down in the sixth with two strikeouts and a ground out after Pender opened with a single then Tate Fischer came on in the seventh and coaxed a line drive and two fly balls, sandwiched around a single to end the game and send Hartington Post 4 to a state title game for the first time in history.

“I wasn’t surprised the way we did it, but whew,” Hartington skipper, Don Whitmire said.

“We have a lot of confidence right now and we just don’t quit.”

Hartington Post 4 Juniors defeat Pender Post 55 Juniors 7-5.

H2030020-772 P4100000-571 WP: Bodie Hochstein LP: Trevor Trimble S: Tate Fischer. 2B: Bodie Hochstein, Sam Wiebelhaus (H); Lakota Whitface-Russman (P). 3B: Trevor Trimble (P). Hartington Post 4 Batting: Line up AB R H RBI BB SO Breiton Whitmire 3 2 2 0 1 0 Bodie Hochstein 3 0 1 2 0 1 Hunter Bensen 2 2 1 0 2 1 Koby Detlefsen 3 0 1 2 1 0 Easton Hochstein 3 0 0 0 1 1 Grady Haberer 4 0 0 1 0 1 Sam Wiebelhaus 4 1 1 0 0 2 Keyton Arens 4 1 1 0 0 1 Maverick Heine 3 0 0 0 0 1 TEAM 29 7 7 5 8 8