‘He was not going to lose that game for us’

Owatonna Legion Post 77’s dream run to the 2026 Minnesota American Legion Baseball State Tournament ended with a quick, controversial exit after falling in consecutive games to the Wayzata Wizards and Grand Rapids Wolfpack last week.

Despite dropping the first game 6-2 to the eventual state runner-up Wizards, the real heartbreak for Post 77 came in the second round when a brilliant start by pitcher Connor Wiese was derailed by weather late in the game, resulting in a 4-3 loss.

“Connor was absolutely cruising. I think he had 50 pitches through five innings. There was a steady drizzle going on for most of the game. It wasn’t that big of a deal to start, but then toward the latter part of the fifth and sixth, it started to pick up. As we got further in, it became a steady, hard rain,” said Post 77 head coach Tate Cummins.

Up until the beginning of the sixth inning, Owatonna led 2-0 behind an RBI single by Wiese and an RBI sacrifice fly by Aedan Tackmann and looked fully in control of the game.

Wiese had allowed only one hit and struck out five batters over the same stretch, but when the rain picked up, Wiese began to lose his grip on the ball and the lead.

“Every [baseball] he had to rub down super well just to try and keep it dry. He was hiding the ball between his legs before coming set to try and keep it away from the rain… It got to the point where I took a timeout to talk to him and then I spoke with the umpires to see if it was a good idea to delay the game, but [the umpires] wanted to play through it. So, I went back to the dugout and a couple pitches later, he hit the batter to load the bases. Then the next kid came up and first pitch, he hit him too,” said Cummins.

According to Cummins, during the sequence of hit batters he had advocated for the game to be delayed due to the playing conditions but was issued a “warning” from the home-plate umpire, who also threatened to eject him if he spoke out again about a delay.

“Every ball was just slick. I mean, this is a kid who looked great. It was his best outing of the season by far. He was not going to lose that game for us. But Mother Nature had other plans,” said Cummins on his pitcher’s sudden change in form.

Only after the second batter was hit on the first pitch of the plate appearance did the umpire crew decide to delay the game – a decision that Grand Rapids’ coaching staff “wanted no part of,” said Cummins.

According to him, play resumed after “20-30 minutes” of delay.

The two consecutive hit batters gave Grand Rapids its first run of the game to cut the score to 2-1 for Owatonna at the time of the stoppage.

Grand Rapids managed to score in the next at-bat by sending a sacrifice fly to center field to tie the game at 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Neither side scored in the seventh to send the game into extra innings.

Owatonna threatened first by loading the bases with one out in the top of the eighth following two walks for Tackmann and A.J. Ulrich and a single by Jace Ulrich.

Wiese took the plate and capitalized with a sacrifice fly to right field that scored Tackmann from third to give Post 77 at 3-2 lead.

However, Grand Rapids struck right back in the bottom of the inning with a gutsy sequence of quality at-bats.

The Wolfpack scored a leadoff double and followed it with a sacrifice bunt to advance the runner to third before laying down a risky suicide squeeze bunt to bring home the runner from third and tie the game at 3-3.

Owatonna couldn’t get its bats going in the ninth and 10^th inning, affording the Wolfpack an opportunity to win the game in the bottom of the 10^th.

A leadoff single, another sacrifice bunt to advance the runner into scoring position and an intentional walk set Grand Rapids up with runners on first and second with one out.

Owatonna’s Jace Ulrich had replaced Wiese in the bottom of the eighth and pitched strongly until this point, but despite recording the second out a strikeout, Grand Rapids’ Alex Wegwerth got the better of Ulrich to send a walk-off RBI single into center field.

“Regardless, we did play well. We had our chances, but it didn’t work out. I thought we were among the best in the tournament. We had some of the best pitching out there. I thought this team did an exceptional job playing defense, pitching and getting those big hits,” said Cummins on his 2026 team despite the season-ending loss.

The game prior, Owatonna lost 6-2 to the Wayzata Wizards in a game that slowly slipped away from the team.

After leading 2-0 through two innings thanks to an RBI single by Arik Tackmann and a Wizards’ fielding error that allowed Wyatt Frantesl to score, Post 77 watched the Wizards rally back to take the lead at 3-2 in the next two innings.

Wayzata eventually put the game away with three runs in the top of the seventh while Post 77’s bats went cold for the remainder of the game.