Sioux Falls Little League dominates again at regional, mauling Minnesota 12-0

WHITESTOWN, Indiana (Dakota News Now) — The Little League team from Sioux Falls opened its Midwest Regional play with a bang on Friday, scoring five runs in the first inning on their way to an 11-1 win over North Dakota.

No way things would be that easy for South Dakota’s champs twice in a row, right? Especially in a game that started at 8 a.m.?

Wrong.

South Dakota’s state champions repeated the out-of-the-chute feat, scoring five in the first inning again and adding seven in the fifth to maul the Minnesota state champs from St. Louis Park, 12-0.

Sioux Falls banged out 15 hits. Ryan Henry gave up just five hits in his 4.1 innings to earn the win. He also tallied a hit. Manny Kortan led SD with three hits in three at-bats, while Sullivan Krueger and Kinnick Noble had two hits apiece.

Sioux Falls has beaten its two foes in the regional by a combined score of 23-1 to earn two days off.

Next up — a game on ESPN against Missouri on Wednesday at 10 A.M. CST.

In the DNN highlight package, the South Dakotans loaded the bases in the first inning, and a worm burner under the Minnesota third baseman’s glove — that was chalked up as an error — led to all three baserunners coming home. The final of those three runs came across after the Minnesota catcher threw a wild throw to second, attempting to hunt down the batter. Two more runs would score in the first to make it 5-0 before the seats were even warm.

The final two runs came off a deep two-run homer to centerfield from Devin Cargin, his fourth hit of the first two games of the regional.

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