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The Bon Homme baseball team participated in the State High School Baseball Tournament May 29 and May 30 in Sioux Falls and opened tournament play against newcomer Rapid City Christian. Bon Homme wasted little time by jumping out to a 8-0 lead after three innings and cruised to a 10-1 victory as Landon Smith picked up the win throwing two innings before getting relief help from Easton Mudder and Landon Bares as they collectively scattered 4 hits, walked only 2 and struck out 4. At the plate, Jackson Caba had 2 hits including a double. Bares knocked in 3 runs while Jace Toupal knocked in 2. In semi-final action we were more than ready for our shot against the two-time champs from Dell Rapids. Riley Rothschadl started and turned in an awesome and rare performance as he tossed a NO HITTER while striking out 16 and leading us to an impressive 5-0 win. The boys would go up 1-0 in the third inning as Mudder would single in Rothschadl who had tripled. In the fifth inning we knocked out Dell Rapids starter Jack Henry as we put together a couple hits and a walk and hit-by-pitch to score 4 runs to go up 5-0. Dell Rapids never threatened as Rothschadl was in complete command. Mudder and Rothschadl each had 2 hits to lead the offense while Toupal added the other hit to advance us to the championship game against the Tea Titans. In the finals against Tea (who beat Dakota Valley in extra innings), we couldn’t get anything going early and gave Tea a couple extra outs each of the first three innings and before we knew it, we were looking at a 1-6 deficit and couldn’t put together any rally and lost by the score of 2-13. Smith started and worked the first two innings before being relieved by Brady Bierema, Logan Winckler and Mudder. They all gave me their best but in the end we just couldn’t slow down the Titan bats as they collected 12 hits, and we walked 5. At the plate, Rothschadl, Bierema, Bares, Toupal and Smith had hits in the championship game as we totaled only 5 hits. Bon Homme finished the season 16-1 and played in the final game of the season. Getting second place was not our ultimate goal, but something the team should be proud of. We worked hard to get to that spot and knowing we just didn’t play well in the final game will drive us to keep improving as we transition to the summer Teener and Legion seasons. Riley Rothschadl was named Class B PLAYER OF THE YEAR and deservedly so. He finished with offensive statistics off the charts as he batted .547 with 29 hits in 17 games with 17 extra base hits including 8 home runs while striking out only 4 times and walking 15 times. He also led the team with 12 stolen bases. On the mound he was even better as he went 4-0 with 35 innings pitched and gave up only 2 earned runs to finish with an ERA of .40 while striking out 78 and only walking 8. I can’t wait for the next Riley to come along as I’m a lot better coach when he’s on my team. Overall, it was a successful season, and one that we’ll always remember.