MITCHELL — Cinderella's slipper shrank a bit on the final day of the 94th South Dakota State Amateur Baseball Tournament but couldn't spoil the remarkable ride for the Clark Traders.
The Traders (10-9), who weren't even sure they were going to field a team in 2026 and carried a 5-7 record into the postseason, lost 12-2 to the Alexandria Angels (21-3) in the Class B championship game on Sunday, Aug. 16, at Cadwell Park.
The Harrisburg Woodies (27-4) opened the day with a 3-1 win over the Renner Monarchs in the Class A championship that started at noon. It was a repeat of the 2025 championship that Harrisburg also won.
Alexandria then followed by plating nine runs in the top of the first inning of the Class B championship and won its sixth state B title since 2013 (first since 2020). The Angels added three more runs in the second and cruised to the seven-inning win.
Still, the loss can't diminish the memorable finish to the season for Clark.
"I really figured one-and-done was probably going to be what happened at state," Clark general manager Fred Obermeier said. "Each time I went to the ballpark, I figured it was probably going to be the end of the season."
Turning it on when it countedClark has fielded an amateur baseball team for many years (and even had a couple in the early 1980s) before joining forces in 1984. Obermeier started managing one of the teams in 1983 and has been involved with the Clark amateur program in a variety of roles ever since.
The team still has a few veteran players, some of whom played when the Traders last reached the state semifinals in 2014. Thanks to a handful of players from the Clark-Willow Lake American Legion Baseball team, who are eligible to also play amateur baseball, the squad was able to field at least nine players throughout the season.
Clark, however, entered the postseason at 5-7 and as the fifth seed in the District 1 tournament. The odds weren't great that the Traders would be even one of the four teams from the district to qualify for the 32-team state tourney. Wins over Milbank and Lake Norden clinched the Traders' spot at state.
No one could have predicted what followed. The Traders fell behind 4-2 to Wessington Springs in their tourney opener on Aug. 7 and needed six unearned runs (including three in the bottom of the eighth) to pull out a 6-5 win.
Clark then beat two district champions, the Tabor Bluebirds 10-3 on Aug. 11 and the Dell Rapids Mudcats 8-7 on Aug. 14 before slipping past the Hartford-Humboldt Wood Ducks 7-6 in another thriller on Aug. 15 to reach the championship.
Clark's last appearance in the state championship game came in 1984 when it lost to the Claremont Honkers 9-2 in the Class B final.
Feeling no pressureClark trailed 2-1 after four innings before erupting for five runs in the top of the fifth in the win over Tabor. They spotted the Mudcats a 4-0 deficit after 3 1/2 innings before platting six runs in the fifth and after Dell Rapids tied the game at 7-7 with two runs in the top of the ninth, Zach Toben's walk-off homer in the bottom of ninth kept the Traders moving forward.
It was much the same in the semifinals when Hartford-Humboldt bolted to a 4-0 lead after four innings before the Traders rallied and eventually scored the tying and winning runs in the top of the seventh.
"Just look at how the games went for us, grinding out every game," Zach Toben, 2013 Deuel High School graduate and current Watertown teacher and and coach, said. "That just built that camaraderie. We joked that we're a scary team after the fifth inning. Once we scored, the pressure was off and we were off to the races. That's how the tournament went for us."
The magical ride ended on Sunday when Alexandria when two Angels reached base after being by a pitch in the top of the first. Alexandria then added seven run-scoring hits, including a two-run single by Ben Wilber and a two-run double by Charlie Dubanoski.
Dakota Munger earned Keith Cutler Class B MVP honors for Alexandria after delivering a two-run single in a three-run second inning and then striking out seven batters in the complete-game win on the mound.
Leading the wayNo team does what Clark did on the basis of one player and the Traders certainly had plenty of players come through including outfielder Merik Junker, a pickup player from the Milbank Firechiefs, and Legion players Cooper Pommer, Jakob Steen and Watson Grantham.
Veterans Grayson Florey, Andrew Magedanz, player-manager Brent Giffith, Hudson Fuller, Jack Heesch and Bryce DesLauriers all had their moments for the Traders, who last made the state semifinals in 2014 and hadn't played in a state championship game since 1984. Bryce's father Don was a key member of the 1984 team.
The tournament MVP for Clark, however, was Toben. He not only had the walk-off homer that was part of a 4-for-5 game against the Mudcats, he followed by driving in three runs and tossing a 134-pitch, complete-game effort on the mound in the semifinal win over Hartford-Humboldt.
Toben batted .556 (10-for-18) with nine RBIs in the tourney, just missing out on the Class B tournament batting title with a final out on his 1-for-4 performance in Sunday's championship.
It still was a very memorable tourney for Toben and all of his Trader teammates.
"I think this is my 13th state tournament and I had never made it past the third round," Toben said. "For me to hit the walk-off homer and break the seal on that was great and to take the bump the next day was just icing on the cake.
"I don't know know if I'll ever have a tournament run like did. To put it all together ... I won't get to experience something like that again as a Cinderella.
Other tourney notes- Alexandria's run to the championship included a 5-4 quarterfinal win over the Volga Cormorants, the District 1B champion, on Aug. 13. Volga trailed 5-0 before plating four runs in the bottom of the eighth with a two-run double by pickup player Dom Boerger of Milbank and run-scoring singles by Austin Buysse and Bayley Colemer. Boerger and Buysse each finished with two hits. Munger had four hits in Alexandria's 14-5 win over Dell Rapids PBR in the other semifinal on Aug. 15.
- Steen added two hits in Clark's quarterfinal win over the Dell Rapids Mudcats. Florey added three hits and Watson Grantham two in the semifinal win over Hartford-Humboldt. Clark also won the tourney's Richard Rockafellow Sportsmanship Award. Toben was selected as the Class B Tony Adams Hustle Award on Aug. 15. Carson Jager of Brookings won the Class A honor.
- In Sunday's championship, 51-year-old David Grantham delivered a pinch-hit single in the bottom of the seventh and and joined his son Watson, a recent Hamlin High School graduate, with hits in the game. Watson, Pommer and Caleb Drenth played in the state Class B high school baseball, SD VFW Varsity Alpha and SDABA Class B state championship games all this year.
- Jack Sutton went 4-for-5 with two RBIs, Dalton Allen collected three hits and Tanner Brown tossed a five-hitter with 15 strikeouts to lead Harrisburg to the Class A championship. Harrisburg's Dalton Lehnen, who batted .454 and also had a 1.42 ERA with 11 strikeouts on the mound, earned the Keith Cutler Class A MVP Award. Cam Jensen of the Tea Steam was the Sid Lundquist Class A batting champion by hitting .478 (11-for-23) in the tourney.
- The Aberdeen Circus Sports Bar, the only area squad among the eight teams in the double-elimination Class A tourney, lost to the Tea Steam on a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth on Aug. 14. Easton Millar had three hits and Kris Kwak two for Aberdeen, which finished the season at 12-7.
- It's likely that no team from the Eastern Dakota League (District 1) has ever won the state championship. The Lake Norden Lakers were the last EDL team to reach the state championship in 1991 before losing to Dell Rapids. Teams from Webster (1934) and Watertown (1935 and 1945) did win state championships and those towns have played in the EDL in the past 50 years but the league likely had not officially started yet in the 1930s and 1940s.
- The Class B and A all-tournament teams will be announced later.
Follow Watertown Public Opinion sports reporter Roger Merriam on X (formerly known as Twitter) @PO_Sports or email: rmerriam@thepublicopinion.com
This article originally appeared on Watertown Public Opinion: Alexandria, Harrisburg teams capture state amateur baseball titles
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