The Prairie Pirates built an 8-0 lead then held off a Clearwater Valley rally to win 8-7 on Senior Night Thursday, May 6 at Cottonwood.
With the win Prairie earns a share of the league title and will be the #1 seed into District on a tie-breaker over Kendrick.
They will play at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, May 11 at Orofino with their opponent to be determined by the play-in games on Tuesday. They need to win at least 1 game at District to advance to State as just 3 teams qualify this year instead of 4 like in the past.
The game started well for the Pirates as starting pitcher Chase Kaschmitter got through the top of the first allowing 1 baserunner on a passed ball third strike.
In the bottom of the first Dalton Ross doubled to left with 1 out. Kaschmitter reached on a bad hop single and Ross scored on Dean Johnson’s single up the middle.
Kaschmitter allowed only a walk in the second.
The bottom of the inning started well as Brody Hasselstrom led off with a double to left and Lane Remacle was walked. However they were stranded as the next 3 hitters were all put out.
Kaschmitter set the side down in order in the third and the fourth innings.
Prairie finally scored again in the bottom of the fourth as Reece Shears had a 2 out single to right center. He stole second, went to third on an error and scored on a bad pickoff throw to third.
Kaschmitter gave up another walk in the fifth inning but struck out the other 3 hitters he faced in the inning.
Prairie finally got to C.V. pitcher Connor Jackson in the bottom of the fifth. Johnson led off with a pop fly single to right that the wind knocked down so that it fell into the grass just beyond the infield. That seemed to open the floodgates. Colton McElroy followed with a single to left and Connor Schwartz reached on a pop fly  that just got past the shortstop’s reach to load the bases.
Travis Alfrey reached on an error with Johnson scoring. Hasselstrom hit a single to score McElroy. Remacle then hit a double to center that scored both Schwartz and Alfrey. Shears hit a grounder to first that allowed Hasselstrom to score. After Ross walked, Kaschmitter hit a sacrifice fly to center that scored Remacle to make it 8-0.
Kaschmitter got through the top of the sixth with a runner reaching on an error but he didn’t advance past first base.
That saw him taking a no-hitter into the top of the seventh inning with an 8-0 lead.
Kaschmitter struck out the leadoff batter then started to struggle. He walked the next batter, gave up a single to right and then walked another batter to load the bases.
Kaschmitter was then lifted with Schwartz going to the mound. Schwartz struggled as he hit the next batter with his first pitch to score C.V.’s first run of the game. A single to right scored another run and a walk forced in another run.
Jackson then hit a grand slam home run over the fence in left center to cut the lead to 8-7.
Schwartz was then replaced by Alfrey on the mound. Alfrey got a groundout to third, gave up a single to put the tying run on base and then got the next batter to fly out to shortstop to end the game.
The C.V. rally brought up memories of the last 3 games C.V. played at Cottonwood, all won by the Rams. In 2019 C.V. won 16-20. In 2018 on Senior Night Prairie gave up 5 runs in the top of the 7^th to lose 9-10 to the Rams. In 2017 in a play-in game, Prairie took a 7-1 lead into the sixth inning and wound up losing 7-22. At least this time they held on to win the game.
Kaschmitter gave up 3 runs on just 1 hit in 6 1/3 innings with 4 walks and 10 strikeouts. Schwartz faced 4 batters and gave up 4 runs on 2 hits with a walk and a hit batsman. Alfrey pitched 2/3 of an inning and gave up 1 hit and no runs.
The Pirates had 11 hits with Hasselstrom collecting and double and a single with an RBI. Johnson had 2 singles and an RBI. Schwartz had 2 singles. Remacle had a double and 2 RBI. Ross had a double. Shears and Kaschmitter each had a single and an RBI. McElroy had a single.
Prairie finishes the regular season with an 11-4 record, 11-3 and tied with Kendrick for first place in league.
C.V. 0 0 0 0 0 0 7—7   4 2
Prairie 1 0 0 1 6 0 x—8 11 2