“It’s awesome,” Sleepy Eye head coach Caden Evers said. “A lot of these guys were on the team last year when they got double-dipped by Luverne, and that was kind of a hard feeling for them, and hard on the coaching staff last year. It was a hard feeling for me, I wanted to come back and help these guys make it, and I think it stuck with them too and they made sure that didn’t happen again.”

Sleepy Eye got all four of its runs in the fourth inning, putting up four runs on four hits and an error.

“Stay simple,” Sleepy Eye’s Tyler Mathiowetz said. “You can’t win a game in one swing. Sometimes it happens, but when those hits come together, you just take simple swings and go back to fundamentals and just do the little things right. It makes a big difference.”

For Post 7, the win represents a return to form for the team after taking a pair of tough losses to Luverne last season in the sub-state tournament.

Staff photo by Ari Selvey Sleepy Eye's Ethan Schwartz celebrates after getting the final out of the Southwest Sub-State DII Senior Legion Baseball Tournament Championship against St. James Saturday at Veteran's Park in St. James.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Sleepy Eye’s Landry Folkens said. “It’s like a standard for our program. We try to do the best we can, and we try to do it every year.”

Now Sleepy Eye can look for its third DII Senior Legion State Championship after winning it in 2023 and 2024.

“That was our goal,” Mathiowetz said. “We had a good roster from the get-go. We knew from school ball that the team was going to be really good and competitive. We have a lot of pitchers, and our team brings a lot of energy. We have a lot of fun too. That’s the best thing.”

Evers and assistant coaches Winsten Nienhaus and Mark Anderson were all on those state championship teams, and the experience they bring with them will be valuable for the upcoming tournament run.

“We played a lot of games at the state tournament, and I think that will help out a lot,” Evers said. “Just a bunch of different situations handling guys, and it will be a lot of fun.”

Staff photo by Ari Selvey The Sleepy Eye Legion Baseball team celebrates after winning the Southwest Sub-State DII Senior Legion Baseball Tournament Championship against St. James Saturday at Veteran's Park in St. James.

Kayden Klein got the complete-game win for Sleepy Eye, striking out three while allowing five hits in the shutout.

“I got to give a lot of credit to Klein,” Mathiowetz said. “He gets us some pretty easy plays, he makes them have rough contact. We make the plays when they get to us. Our defense gives a lot of credit to him. We make the plays and we play really hard.”

At the plate, Mathiowetz was 2 for 3 with an RBI and a run scored, while Adam Braulick had a hit and two RBIs. Chino Luna added an RBI and a run scored.

Neither team had much offensive success outside of Sleepy Eye’s four-run inning. The teams combined for three total hits through the first 3 1/2 innings of the game before Landry Folkens opened the bottom of the fourth with a double.

“Our teammates are backing us up, so we come out there with confidence,” Folkens said. “Looking to put us in scoring positions so we can trust our teammates to bring us in. Just get on the board there because we needed it big.”

Ethan Schwartz followed that with a bunt single, then Luna put a hard-hit ball into play that resulted in an error and a run scored for Folkens. Karter Haala bunted to put runners at second and third, then Mathiowetz had an RBI single and Braulick hit a two-run single to make it a 4-0 game.

“It took us a few innings to get things going,” Evers said. “I think we were just trying to do a little too much with those first couple of innings. Everyone is excited, everyone is ready to play. We came out a little too amped up. We just had to calm down, stay to our approach, play base-to-base baseball. We did a very nice job in that fourth inning doing that.”

St. James did get a single with one out in the top of the seventh inning, but Braulick made a running catch and was able to double out the over-aggressive baserunner at first for a double play to end the game and clinch a state tournament berth.

The state tournament begins on Friday, July 31 at Glenwood.

“Just continue what we’ve been doing,” Evers said. “Just doing the little things right is what we’ve preached all year. Staying simple, not trying to do too much and make a pretty good run.”