Post 91 lived up to hype; Baseball team made memories on its way to first state trip in 25 years
Published 9:41 am Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Austin’s Nik Gasner pitches against North Saint Paul at the state Legion baseball tournament in Edina Friday.
Photos by Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
The Austin Post 91 Legion baseball team’s season ended Sunday after its second loss in the Division I Minnesota State Tournament, but that couldn’t sour what was a great summer for the team.
Not only did Post 91 racked up a lot of wins and earn its first state tournament trip in 25 years, the team also managed to accomplish those feats with a target on its back the entire summer.
Going into this season, Post 91 was expected to be one of the top teams in the district and it faced everybody’s best shot. Despite that, Austin was able to fight off every challenge thrown its way as it rallied all the way to the state tournament.
The sun reflects off of Jordan Hart’s helmet as he takes a swing at the Legion state baseball tournament in Edina Friday.
Post 91 boasted a talented and deep squad, but one of the team’s biggest assets was its lack of panic. When Austin dropped its first District tournament game to Rochester John Marshall, nobody lost their cool and they calmly went out and took care of business in the second game. When Austin trailed North Saint Paul 6-1 after seven innings in the first round of the state tournament, nobody was sulking or feeling sorry for themselves, and Austin came back to win 7-6. When Austin trailed TriCity 6-0 in the second round of state after TriCity had just won its first game 26-2, Post 91 bounced back and won 12-11.
It was fun watching Post 91 play hard and play for the fun of the game all summer long. There was plenty of good baseball, but when I look back at this team I’ll think of some of the fun the team had as well.
I’ll remember Nate Conner and Alex Ciola pretending they were reporters and holding their phones out like they were recorders when I was interviewing Jason Stoulil.
I’ll remember Jordan Hart smiling as he flatly stated “We just need to play Post 91 baseball” when I asked him about playing teams from the cities.
I’ll remember Isaac Schumacher losing his head for a second and throwing his arms up as he ran the bases for his first career home run against Waseca.
Mostly, I’ll remember that this group loved baseball and they came to play every time they took to the diamond. Hopefully the next generation of Austin baseball players were paying attention during Post 91’s run, because there was a lot to learn — on and off the field.
Follow Rocky Hulne on Twitter at @RockyHulneADH.