Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Sleepy Eye St. Marys’ Joey Herzog tags out Sleepy Eye’s Nolan Domeier out at second during the Knights’ Section 2A elimination bracket baseball game with the Indians on Tuesday at ISG Field in Mankato.

MANKATO — Head coach Bruce Woitas and his No. 6-seeded Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s baseball team are now two wins away from making the state tournament.

The only team left in the Knights’ way is top-seeded New Ulm Cathedral, head coached by Bruce Woitas’ son Alan Woitas.

On Tuesday at ISG Field, the Knights picked up a win over Sleepy Eye 3-0 before ending the night with a 4-2 win over Martin County West to win the elimination bracket and move on to Thursday’s Section 2A finals.

The Knights will take on the Greyhounds at 5 p.m. Thursday at ISG Field. A win over the Greyhounds would force a second game at approximately 7:30 p.m. that night, but a loss ends the Knights’ season.

“We’ve been playing good baseball here of late, and obviously that was key in the run we’ve put on here so far to be able to get back to a section championship game, that’s great for our kids to have that,” Bruce Woitas said. “And going up against Alan, Alan’s done a great job at Cathedral in his two years of coaching. His first year would have been that year that we lost to COVID, but he’s done a really good job with that program and that team, but we’re looking forward to the opportunity to play them and hopefully we’ll play them two times on Thursday. Happy for him, he’s done a great job with that program, but we’re coming to play and hopefully give some good games on Thursday to them as well.”

In the first game of the evening against fourth-seeded Sleepy Eye, the Knights collected just two hits off Indians starting pitcher Nick Mielke. But the Knights made the most of their opportunities when they got runners on.

After a sac bunt by Knights starting pitcher Mark Anderson moved Talan Helget and Owen Weiss up a base, Kaleb Wait’s two-run single to left put the Knights up 2-0.

Two errors by the Indians in the third inning allowed Jon Petermann to score and give St. Mary’s its 3-0 lead that was never surrendered.

Mielke was solid during his complete-game effort, finishing with seven strikeouts. He gave up two hits and two walks for two earned runs.

The Knights were thrifty on offense, however, and relied on a solid pitching performance from their own starter. Anderson ended up allowing four hits and four walks while striking out four in the complete-game shutout.

The Indians stranded eight runners during the game, including two in the bottom of the seventh.

“Mark Anderson gave us exactly what we needed,” Bruce Woitas said. “Complete game, did a great job throwing strikes, only walked a few guys, they didn’t have that many hits as well. Defensively in that game, we had zero errors on the field, really good defense behind. We didn’t get many hits, but we got some clutch ones when we needed them.”

Mason Sellner ended up going 2 for 3 to lead Sleepy Eye at the plate.

The Knights got their second hit of the game on a seventh-inning double by Brandon Schmitz.

In the Knights’ second elimination game of the day, the Mavericks were first on the board after an RBI fielder’s choice from Brice Enter in the top of the second. But Knights starter Talan Helget escaped a bases-loaded jam that inning by only surrendering that one run.

St. Mary’s quickly took the lead away in the bottom of the second after an RBI single from Brandon Schmitz scored Anderson and a delayed steal scored Wait and moved Schmitz to second.

MCW tied it in the top of the sixth on another sac fly, but the Knights scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth on RBIs from Schmitz and Kameron Kosak to pull away for the win.

Helget got the win in six innings against MCW, giving up three hits and two walks for two runs while fanning five. Schmitz pitched the final inning for the save, giving up no hits while striking out one.

Owen Weiss and Schmitz each had a pair of singles against MCW.

“In Game 2, it was a lot of the same,” Bruce Woitas said. “Talan came on for us and did a great job, went six innings, just had that one tough inning. … But we were able to capitalize and get those two runs back and then score two in the bottom of the sixth. We didn’t execute some things on some sac bunts a couple times that ran us out of an inning, things like that, those things we’ve got to get better at as well. You’ve got to be able to do those things when you’re asked to.

“That game, too, we had no defensive errors, we made all the plays defensively, we just had some mental errors and not executing some things and got doubled up on sac-bunt situation, runner took off, but again we came out when we needed to and got clutch hits when we needed to, so just great games overall for us.”