Minnesota high school baseball state tournament: Esko rolls Perham to finish historic season in Class 2A title game
Minnesota high school baseball state tournament: results, recaps, stat leaders from the semifinals
Brackets
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The No. 1-seed Esko Eskomos defeated the Perham Yellowjackets 9-0 in the Class 2A MSHSL Baseball state championship on Friday at CHS Field.
The offense had nine different batters contribute hits, while pitcher Dylan Marciulionis threw seven shutout innings.
"I don't know if it's sunk in yet," head coach Ben Haugen said. "As the game wore on it started to become more and more real. It's an unbelievable feeling."
The Eskomos were a dominant team all season on their way to the first state title in school history. They finish with a 27-1 record, having only allowed more than six runs or more once all season while scoring double-digit runs in 15-of-28 games.
Their stellar play continued in the postseason.
In the section tournament, the Eskomos had a +48 run differential through five games. That includes a six-inning game against Mora when they allowed six runs, the most they had all season.
In the state tournament, the Eskomos had a tight 1-0 win against St. Agnes in the quarterfinals. But they rolled Cannon Falls in the semifinals 7-2.
"We need to be playing our best baseball in June," senior Cale Haugen said. "We definitely came here and played our best baseball."
The defense dominated at CHS Field with only two runs over three games.
"We got three unbelievable pitching performances," Ben Haugen said. "Just magic."
Cale Haugen added: "This is the best I've seen our defense play in a while. We were locked in from the start."
The Eskomos took a 1-0 lead in the second inning with an RBI single from Connor Pearce.
They added four more runs in the fifth inning. Sam Haugen hit an RBI single, and Cale Haugen hit a 2-RBI triple to clear the bases and give the Eskomos the 4-0 lead.
"Our offense gave me a big lead to work with," Marciulionis said. "I was able to just throw strikes and not walk people and just trust my defense, and they did a spectacular job behind me today."
Bryce Hipp hit a sacrifice fly to drive Cale Haugen in, and Bobby Thornton singled for the final RBI of the inning.
Cale Haugen and Isaak Sertich added two runs in the sixth inning. Finn Furcht hit a home run over the left field wall for a 9-0 Esko lead and the eventual win.
"It's just insane," Marciulionis said. "This is so cool. I've been dreaming about this since I was little. ... Our team has done it as a team. Everyone had a part of it."
Photo by Jack Butler
