(Photo – Kevin Patterson)
CLARION, Ia. — The Roland-Story Norsemen baseball team hit the road on Tuesday night, for a short drive into Wright County to take on the Pocahontas Area Indians in their Class 2A, Substate 2 Final at Clarion-Goldfield-Dows High School. Roland-Story entered with a record of 36-3, while Pocahontas Area entered at 19-11.
Roland-Story would open things up early, plating 2 runs in the bottom of the first on a Braden Wallace 2-run RBI single to give the Norsemen an initial 2-0 lead. The Norsemen would add onto the lead with a Jake Knoll RBI groundout in the 3rd to put Roland-Story up 3-0 lead, before adding another run in the 6th on Derek Acevedo steal of home as Roland-Story led 4-0. The Norsemen would keep the Pocahontas bats quiet all night, holding the high-powered Indians to 4 hits as Roland-Story punched their ticket to their first state tournament since 2015 with a 4-0 shutout win.
Reece Blaisdell was the winning pitcher, throwing the complete game 4-hit shutout with 8 strikeouts. Colin Willis would go 3-for-3 with a run scored, while Braden Wallace was 2-for-3 with 2 RBI.
Roland-Story advances to next week’s Class 2A State Tournament at Merchants Park in Carroll, as the 2nd-seeded Norsemen take on the 7th-seeded Durant Wildcats at 1:30 PM on Tuesday afternoon. The game will air on 95.7 KQWC or streaming online at kqradio.com.