Stillwater Ponies Take Third Place in Class AAAA Baseball

The Class AAAA third place game between the Rogers Royals and the Stillwater Ponies was like watching a play in two acts.

In Act I, Stillwater pitcher Ben Borrman held the Royals hitless through six innings, allowing only one base runner, a walk to Carter Van Engen and in Act II, the Royals came back from a three run deficit in the top of the seventh inning to tie the game and the Ponies won in the bottom of the inning on a walkoff, bases loaded squeeze bunt from Nicholas Seeman that led them to a 4-3 win Saturday night at CHS Field in St. Paul.

Both teams were scoreless through the first three innings as Borrman would go on a run of eight straight strikes that would include striking out the side in the fourth and fifth innings.  The senior pitcher did get support from the Ponies offense.  In the bottom of the fourth, Jay Haws hit an RBI single that scored Tuanson Dufrense-To and Haws would cross the plate on a double from Noah Potter.

Stillwater would go up by three in the bottom of the fifth on Will Frisch's home run that landed in the left field bullpen.

But Rogers, who entered the state tournament with a sub .500 record of 11-13 would battle back with three runs in the top of the seventh inning.  Borrman's no hitter would come to an end on Easton Miller's one out triple and he would score on Reed Olson's RBI single.  They would tie the game on Nick Smegal's two RBI double that scored Olson and Christian Meyer.

The Ponies were up in the bottom of the seventh and Drew Gilbert led off with a double and stole third base,  Frisch's one out walk and Dufrense-To being hit by a pitch loaded the bases for Seeman.  He laid down a perfect squeeze bunt in front of Van Engen and Gilbert would head home to bring the Ponies the bronze medals and third place trophy.

Borrman pitched a complete game and finished with 14 strikeouts.

Stillwater concluded their season with a record of 24-3 and Rogers ended their year 13-14.