Rebels top Braves for region title

PIERZ - The Fort Ripley Rebels captured the Region 8C championship Monday night with a 9-6 win over the Brainerd Braves.

Austin Schmolke was 3-for-5 with an RBI and run scored for the Rebels. Joe Tautges was 2-3 with a double, walk, three RBIs and a run. Bill Sather was 2-3 and scored a run.

Brainerd's Brandon Wolf hit a two-run homer in the top of the third and a solo shot in the seventh and finished 2-3. Derek Owen was 2-4 and scored two runs and Jamie LaDouceur was 2-4 with two doubles and an RBI.

It was Fort Ripley's first Region 8C championship since 1995. The Rebels will play Region 3C runner-up Hampton at 11 a.m. Sunday at Gaylord in the Class C state tournament.

Brainerd will take on Region 3C champion Cannon Falls at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at Gaylord in the opening round of its first state tournament since 2000.

Left-hander Ethan Branum got the win. In five innings he allowed three runs and five hits and struck out three. Josh Haberman pitched two innings, allowing two runs and two hits, struck out two and walked one.

Joel Hendrickson earned a save. In two innings he allowed three hits, walked one and struck out one.

After Joe Tautges' first-inning RBI double, the Rebels scored five runs in the second to go ahead 6-0 behind two-run singles by Rhett Williamson and Tautges.

In the top of the ninth, with Fort Ripley leading 9-5, draftee Joel Hendrickson of Harding was closing the game for the Rebels. He retired the first two men before Owen singled to left. Wolf was hit by a pitch to bring up pinch-hitter John Sandberg. In his first plate appearance of the tournament, on an 0-2 pitch, Sandberg delivered an infield single to load the bases with two outs and bring the potential tying run to the plate.

Chris Munsch then came through with another infield single, scoring Owen, making it 9-6 and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate.

Brainerd draftee Curt Caughey, a regular-season teammate of Hendrickson, hit a pop-up down the first base line that was dropped with two strikes to keep the Braves' hopes alive. Hendrickson then got Caughey to pop up to short to end the game.

The Braves' Jason Roepke was named the tournament's most valuable player. He went 10-18 in the tournament with three home runs, four doubles, four walks, seven RBIs and nine runs scored.

Roepke was joined on the all-tournament team by Todd Robinson, Buckman; Nate Olson, Jake Kluver and Jason King, Sobieski; Nate Foss, John Riewer, LaDouceur and Tony Whitlock, Brainerd; and Schmolke, Rhett Williamson, Brett Kramer and Jason Sather, Fort Ripley.

After the game, Brainerd drafted Sobieski's Nate Olson, while the Rebels had yet to determine their pick.

Brainerd 6 10 5

Fort Ripley 9 10 1

WP: Ethan Branum (1-0). LP: Christian Larson.