Blue bows out of playoffs

• Mike Harman

The American Legion baseball season has come to an end for Mike Harman, pictured, and his Woodbury Blue teammates. Staff Photo by Tom Carothers.

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It’s all over for the Woodbury Legion Blue baseball team as the hometown nine was eliminated from the District 3 playoffs over the weekend after losses to Eagan and Apple Valley.

“I’m not sure what place we finished, but we made the final eight,” assistant coach Bruce Harman said. “At the end, we just ran out of pitching.”

After dropping an 11-0 thumping on Red Wing in a tournament play-in game last week, No. 13-seed Woodbury earned a measure of revenge on Oakdale, who shutout Blue, 13-0, earlier this season, by topping the No. 4 seed, 12-8, on Wednesday, July 22.

“I guess you could say we got a little revenge,” Harman said.

Rich Klein earned the victory, with Mike Harman logging the save by hurling the final out after reliever Cole Volkers got the hold with 1 1/3 innings of work, spelling Klein.

Nick Ender and Andrew Herbert had the biggest bats on the day, with Ender going 4-for-5 with three doubles, two runs scored and four batted in and Herbert going 5-for-6 with three runs scored and five RBI.

Yet, 12th-seeded Eagan rained on Blue’s parade the next day, hanging an 8-4 loss on Woodbury.

Dropped to the loser’s bracket, Blue found itself locked in a slugfest with No. 15 seed Lonsdale — who had ended Woodbury White’s season on July 22 in a 4-3 contest.

The hits and runs came so furiously that record keepers stopped keeping track after a point.

However, after all the tallies and a couple of extra frames, Blue found itself down a run going into the bottom of the 11th before a Cole Volkers sacrifice fly plated Harman with his fourth run of the game to tie the score before Colin Keefe’s single brought home Herbert with his fourth run — the game-winning run — as Woodbury won 17-16.

It would prove to be the final victory of the summer for Woodbury, with Ender getting the “W” in extra-inning relief.

Blue’s tank was dry for its showdown with host Apple Valley on Saturday, July 25, as the 89’ers cruised to a 19-2 victory over the utterly depleted Woodbury squad.

“Half of our regular starters were hurt to the point that they could not play,” head coach Justin Feldkamp said. “We had almost every position filled with a player that was not used to playing at the position and we were still one of the last six teams to exit from the 16 team tournament.”

Blue finished up its two-month run with a record of 17-12.

The boys really battled their tails off and finished off the season playing well,” Feldkamp said.

Tags: sports, woodbury, legion, blue, districts