Reddies advance to region championship

Henderson State defeated Minnesota State-Mankato 9-6 Saturday to advance to the finals of the NCAA Division II Central Region Tournament in St. Cloud, Minn.

The Reddies (29-19) will play St. Cloud State (53-4) at noon today for a trip to the NCAA Division II College World Series in Cary, N.C., which begins Saturday.

The Reddies broke the game open with three runs in the third inning and four in the fifth to take an 8-0 lead. The big hits in the third came on a single by Conner Brackhahn that scored Claude Johnson and a two-run single by A.J. Kruzel which scored Brackhan and Lance Fields.

In the fifth inning, Kruzel singled in Tadarious Hawkins and Fields. Carlos Rodriguez singled in Kruzel and Hunter Mayall’s sacrifice fly scored Kruzel.

After Rodriguez’s ground out scored Brackhahn in the seventh, Mankato came back with six runs in the ninth. Kevin Kramer had a two-run single to score Conner McCallum and Hunter Harnisch to make it 9-2. Kyle Toth singled to score Josh Crosby to make it 9-3 before Josh Henderson relieved Henderson starter Clody Jones. A bases-loaded walk to Dylan Dresel allowed Kramer to score to make it 9-4. Harnish singled to score Eric Peterson and Toth.

Jordan Taylor relieved and got McCallum to fly out to end the game.

Southern Arkansas (40-18) lost 4-0 to St. Cloud State earlier Saturday.

The host Huskies scored three times in the first inning on one hit off Southern Arkansas starter Yumezo Densaki. Densaki lasted 51/ innings before reliever Jared Fieden finished up. St. Cloud added another run in the eighth inning.

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