Twins focus on fun at Sapa-Johnsrud

With the Glacier Twins' chances of making the conference baseball playoffs out of reach after a July 6 thumping from league foe Kalispell, the Legion team entered the annual Sapa-Johnsrud tournament as loose as they've been all season.

Maybe they should have been playing more carefree all along.

The Twins turned in one of their more impressive streaks of baseball in years last week at Memorial Park by knocking off a handful of top teams in the region, including a nine-inning thriller over the Chino Reds, a top-tier team in California.

"We started off losing to Kalispell, and that's as frustrated as I've been all year," Twins coach Lindsay Fansler said. "Then after that, the pressure was off for the whole week. The two games against Chino and Gonzaga, we went out there not scared to lose and just enjoyed playing the game. It was a great tourney for me and the kids."

Fansler said his intensity throughout the season might have regressed down to his players, making them too tight in league games.

"It's an adjustment I'm making to be more loose and to trust that the team has prepared as we've coached them to," Fansler said.

With their belts unfastened a few notches, the Twins came to their home tournament ready to put on a show.

They crushed the Gonzaga Prep team 22-5 in the opener, led by homers from Carl Talsma, Dustin VonFeldt and Geoff Streeter. They scored 10 runs in the second and nine in the fifth inning.

Yet, it was the extra-innings thriller over Chino that really brought the house down.

Trailing 3-0, Trevor Miller scored the Twins' first run in the bottom of the second on a Chino error at second base. Streeter then hit an RBI-single in the bottom of the third to close the gap to 3-2.

Great work on the mound from Kyle Knox and gold-glove performances in the infield kept the Reds shut down for the final seven innings.

Knox took a hard-hit ball in the shin in the fourth inning, but after taking a few laps around the mound and shaking it off, he came back even stronger.

"Knox's performance against Chino will stand out as a defining moment of his Legion career," Fansler said. "He got hit with the ball in the top of fourth, and after that, you could tell the lights were on. He wanted that game to be his."

Knox struck out eight in the win and held Chino scoreless for seven consecutive innings.

While Knox was taking a beating on the mound, Jeremy Nielson was dealing with a sour stomach behind the plate. The catcher couldn't keep anything down from the third inning on and even threw up after attempting a diving catch. Yet he stayed in the game.

It was just that kind of night for the Twins, and the heroics hadn't even started yet.

The sixth and seventh innings were reserved for web-gem plays. Kyle Yogodzinski made a diving snag at first base in the sixth to seal a scoreless inning. Then in the seventh, Kyler Blades brought a roar out of the crowd with another full-layout catch at shortstop. Knox struck out the next batter, and Cody Elek gloved a rocket at second base for the final out.

Still down 2-3 going into the bottom of the seventh, the Twins put on their rally caps — literally. Every player on the bench turned their ball cap inside out as the Twins looked to even the score in their final at-bat.

With one out, Blades connected on the first homer of his career, sending the ball over the center-field fence. The bench cleared with the crack of the bat, and the team greeted Blades as he crossed home with his arms in the air.

"To hit that, it was just magical," Fansler said.

After a scoreless eighth inning, however, things took a left turn to Bizarro world.

With two outs, Nielson singled to third base to get a runner on, and Blades reached on an infield hit to put runners on first and third.

Talsma then sent a pop-up deep into the night sky. Three Chino players tracked the ball through the stadium lights, but it came down between all of them and bounced off home plate as a fair ball. Nielson crossed home before the ball even hit the ground to score the game-winning run.

"Everybody agreed that you'll never see that happen again," Fansler said. "For that to be such a high pop-fly out of the lights, the odds are just incredible. We say it was divine intervention."

Whatever it was, the Twins will take it.

"It's moments like that that solidify the season as a success," the coach said. "That win shows we play good baseball and that we work really hard."

The Twins wrapped up the tourney with a 3-2 record after topping Pullman 5-2 in seven innings in their finale.