Midway kept its hopes of advancing to the state Class C amateur baseball tournament alive by going 2-1 during the first weekend of the Region 14C tournament.

The No. 3-seeded Snurdbirds rallied for a 3-2 win over No. 6 New York Mills before being thrown into the losers’ bracket in this double-elimination tournament with a 12-7 loss to No. 2 Nimrod at Deer Creek on Aug. 8. Midway stayed alive by eliminating No. 8 Sebeka 10-0 in eight innings at Perham on Aug. 9.

Steve Wetterling’s two-run home run tied the game at 2-2 in the sixth inning before Midway pushed across the winning run in the eighth to top New York Mills. Stetson Burkman started and allowed two runs over 7 ⅓ innings. Brett Dormanen picked up the win after closing out the eighth while Jake Lund pitched a scoreless ninth for the save.

Nimrod capitalized on Midway errors to advance in the winners’ bracket. Zach Etter led off the game with a homer for the Snurdbirds.

Home runs by Etter, Drew Rasmussen, Ray Mueller and Chris Baso powered the Snurdbirds past Sebeka. Lund and Pete Marjamaa combined on the shutout as Lund struck out nine over the first five innings before Marjamaa pitched the final three innings as this game was ended early via the 10-run rule.

In the other Region 14C games on Aug. 8, No. 1 Bluffton blanked Sebeka 10-0, No. 5 Deer Creek edged No. 4 Perham 1-0, Nimrod defeated Staples 13-1 and Bluffton defeated Deer Creek 9-5. On Aug. 9, Bluffton advanced to the region title game with a 13-3 win over Nimrod while Sebeka shut out Perham 3-0 and New York Mills blanked Staples 5-0 in elimination games. New York Mills eliminated Deer Creek with a 10-0 win.

Midway will carry a 9-4 record into an elimination game against New York Mills on Friday (Aug. 14) at 7:30 p..m. at Perham with the winner of that game meeting Nimrod on Saturday (Aug. 15) at 1 p.m. at Perham. Bluffton awaits the winner in the region final at 4 p.m. on Saturday (Aug. 15) at Perham.

The region champion and runner-up qualify for the state Class C tournament, which begins Aug. 21 and runs through Sept. 6 at Springfield and Milroy.

Esox, Pack out

The Park Rapids Esox and Wolf Lake Wolf Pack were eliminated from the Region 14C playoffs with first-round losses.

Park Rapids, the No. 9 seed, lost to No. 8 Sebeka 8-2 at Perham while No. 10 Wolf Lake was eliminated with a 3-1 loss to No. 7 Staples at Deer Creek on Aug. 7.

Park Rapids (which split games with Sebeka during the regular season, losing 7-0 on July 12 and winning 6-3 in the regular-season finale on Aug. 2) ended the season with a 2-11 record. Wolf Lake, which defeated Staples 13-9 on Aug. 2, closed the season at 2-6.