The final countdown - Huskies playoff preview

Five games into the Region 8B playoffs, the odds-on favorite has won one game. The wildness of playoff baseball is just beginning.

The Hutchinson Huskies, which received a first-round bye after finishing the season with the top record of 6-2, the Huskies will take on No. 4 seed Maple Lake at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Delano.

Maple Lake, which defeated Hamel, 13-3, to advance to the region final four, split the season series with Hutchinson this season.

“Maple Lake is a very good team. I think they feel they should have won that first game. They made a couple of errors that were real costly. And, we feel with a 4-0 lead we should have won the game here,” Huskies manager Tim Thode said.

The Lakers lost in the opening round to Delano, 5-2, but rallied to beat Dassel-Cokato, 4-3, and Hamel Sunday to advance to the next round.

Delano, which won just one Class B game this season, won back-to-back games over Dassel-Cokato and Hamel to advance as the No. 3 seed.

The A’s will face No. 2 seed St. Michael at 7:30 p.m. tonight.

Hutchinson won the first game of the season series over Maple Lake, 8-4, June 6. Aided by eight Laker errors, Hutchinson scored seven runs in the first four innings.

That was enough for Kyle Messner, who struck out seven batters, including the final out, for the win.
The Huskies appeared to be on their way to a season sweep up 4-0 two weeks later, but a five-run seventh inning left Hutchinson on the losing end, 5-4.

Thode says throw out the last two games.

“The thing with the playoffs is everyone is familiar with everyone else. For the most part it’s the same players and the same pitchers on each team. It comes down to executing and playing your ball game,” Thode said.

To read more about the Huskies and the Region 8B playoffs, make sure check out Tuesday's print edition.

Eric Kraushar is the sports editor at the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sports@hutchinsonleader.com