Legion baseball: Errors prove costly for Detroit Lakes, Perham runs away with first-round playoff win

MOORHEAD – Playoff games are often decided by teams that make the fewest mistakes and take advantage of opportunities.

Perham made the most of four Detroit Lakes errors to win its first-round game in the Sub-State 14 Legion baseball tournament 10-4. It avenged a 7-3 loss against its Highway 10 rival in the regular season.

“It kind of sets us right with them,” Perham’s Logan Pulju said. “We can still play against them and beat them now. They won’t get too big of a head on them, and we won’t either.”

It took six innings for Perham to plate a run at Washington Park on July 6. On Wednesday, it took just four batters. Chas Melvin and Ben Shumansky singled before Pulju recorded one of his two run-scoring hits on the night.

Four of the first five Perham batters reached with singles to start the game. Evan Kovash brought home a run on a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0 before Detroit Lakes’ Noah Reiber got out of the jam with a flyout.

“When we do that, our team is at our best,” Pulju said on taking an aggressive approach at the plate early. “When we get those good starts, we have a lot of confidence, and it’s a lot of fun.”

Detroit Lakes got a run back in the bottom of the second without recording a hit. Melvin walked Rieber before sailing a pick-off attempt into right field. Rieber scored on a second throwing error on the play.

Perham and Detroit Lakes combined for seven errors and four unearned runs. A fielding blunder at first base allowed Hunter Korth to tie the game for Detroit Lakes in the bottom of the fourth.

Detroit Lakes was bitten by an error in the top of the fifth. Austin Aanenson reached to start the inning on a booted ball at shortstop. He and Melvin came home on a single from Pulju three batters later.

Some mistakes didn’t show up in the error column. Detroit Lakes showed times of situational unawareness, especially in Perham’s four-run fifth inning.

“Errors at any level of baseball, and especially this level, will come back and bite you,” Perham head coach Jim Mulcahy said. “Sometimes it’s the lack of proper footwork. You take for granted where that ball is supposed to be and where your glove is supposed to go. You have to hit your cut-offs at the right time and know where to throw the ball in certain situations. We didn’t always do a great job of that.”

Andrew Smith gave Perham a 5-2 lead with a sacrifice fly before Pulju scored on a passed ball. Post 61 scored eight runs in the final three innings.

“I love playing in tournaments like this because you never know what each game is going to be like,” Pulju said. “Any of these teams can have a day where the whole order hits, and it gets really fun. Then there are days when it’s not like that, with only one or two guys. Having a team that can all hit is a lot more fun.”

Of Perham’s 12 hits, Pulju had three of them with three RBIs.

“I switched some things in my stance,” Pulju said. “I changed where my hands started. I was a lot more comfortable with that today.”

Detroit Lakes added two more runs in the bottom of the seventh before falling into the elimination side of the bracket. Post 15 recorded 15 hits and six walks in a sluggish day offensively.

Despite Perham’s offensive outbreak in the final innings, Mulcahy wants to see a more consistent approach in all seven innings.

“I wasn’t real pleased with our hitting,” Mulcahy said. “We started OK with some line drives. I think we popped up a little too much. When we stay with that line-drive approach and know that it’s OK to hit singles, that’s where we want to be. Sometimes we revert back to that high school stuff where we were able to hit it over people. You can’t do that in Division I Legion baseball. I can’t be disappointed that we got runs, but when we had better approaches, we did alright.”

Melvin threw 5 and 2/3 innings in what could be his final high-school level start in a Perham jersey. The Minnesota State University-Mankato commit didn’t allow an earned run and struck out seven batters.

“That could be his last start as a Perham Yellowjacket other than a few amateur games,” Mulcahy said of Melvin. “He went out and gave a 105-pitch effort. He maybe wasted a few pitches here and there, but he pitched a quality game.”

“He doesn’t recover well enough to come back later in this tournament unless he was at like 30 pitches. Even then, he doesn’t recover real well. The plan was for him to get to 80-85 pitches. Hitting 105 is not ideal, but we let it roll knowing he was going to be done for the tournament.”