MITCHELL, S.D. – Dimock-Emery’s postseason magic continued on Thursday night with a 7-3 win over the 20-1 Plankinton Bankers to advance to Saturday’s semifinal in the Class B Amateur Baseball State Tournament.
The Raptors (14-10) have now won six games in a row sweeping through the District 5B Tournament with wins over state tournament teams Mt. Vernon, Alexandria and Winner/Colome along with three straight wins in this year’s state tournament.
Phil Johnson threw all nine innings for Dimock-Emery after throwing a complete game vs. Milbank on Sunday night. Johnson allowed three runs on eight hits to go along with seven strikeouts and also went 2-for-5 at the plate with two RBI’s.
Both sides would score a run in the 1st inning before the Raptors would break the 1-1 tie with a pair of two out, run scoring singles in the 5th from Drew Kitchens and Luke Bamberg.
Kitchens would go 3-for-5 from the leadoff spot with two runs and two RBI’s. Bamberg, a pickup player from Corsica-Stickney, went 2-for-5 in the second spot in the lineup with a run and two RBI’s.
Plankinton (20-2) would get a run back in the bottom of the 6th on a two out single from Trevor Salmonson to cut the lead to one.
A Phil Johnson single in the top of the 7th would put Dimock-Emery back up 4-2 before the Bankers Josh Engquist would answer with a two out double to make it 4-3 heading into the 8th inning.
Dimock-Emery would put the game away in the 8th with three runs and a couple of more run scoring plate appearances from the top of the order of Kitchens and Bamberg.
Plankinton starter Travis Gant would get knocked out with one out in the 8th inning. Gant threw 7 1/3 innings, giving up seven runs on 13 hits.
Dimock-Emery will play the winner of Alexandria and Flandreau on Saturday night at 5:30 pm with the winner advancing to Sunday’s championship.