Minnesota teams bounced out at regional tournament

By Tim Engstrom
Shakopee's Nick Johnson, Ryder Peace and Cameron Schroeder have been playing baseball together since they were 10-year-olds.

FARGO — The Carpetland Rugs of Lincoln, Neb., Post 500 will represent the Central Plains region in the American Legion World Series. The baseball team has players from the Lincoln East High School area, and they defeated the West Fargo Post 308 Patriots 6-3 in the Central Plains Regional Tournament championship game Sunday.

The American Legion World Series starts Thursday, Aug. 14, and runs through Tuesday, Aug. 19, at Keeter Stadium in Shelby, N.C. Other teams are from Greece, N.Y., Chesapeake, Va., Asheville, N.C., Bossier City, La., Rockport, Ind., Portland, Ore., and League City, Texas. Game times and results are found here.

Shakopee Post 2 started the tournament strong, beating Elkhorn, Neb., 6-1, then host Fargo Post 400 by a score of 15-6. They fell in the third game to eventual champion Lincoln 16-6. The tournament was double-elimination, so Shakopee still had a shot. However, they lost to the West Fargo Patriots 4-2 — despite having more hits — and were out.

Minnesota’s other team at regionals was the Grand Rapids Post 60 Wolfpack. This team went unranked all season, then came out the typically weak 8th District to reach state and nearly win the state title, falling to Shakopee thanks to a bad throw from short to first in the title game. Post 60 struggled in Fargo, first losing to the Patriots 4-0, then to the Harrisburg Post 45 Tigers 9-4.

Why hasn’t Minnesota reached the ALWS in a long time?

The last team from Minnesota to win the regional and reach the American Legion World Series was Burnsville Post 1700 in 2013. Some of that has to do with fickle nature of baseball, as St. Michael Post 567 was within one out in extra innings of reaching the ALWS back in August 2023. It also has to do with national rules that cap enrollment (based on grades 10-12) of teams from multiple schools at 7,500, while Minnesota maintains a cap of 3,600. This results in some states forming megateams.

Teams from one high school like the Carpetland Rugs still break through. But some teams, like the West Fargo Patriots, form megateams, with select players from West Fargo, Horace, Northern Cass and Sheyenne high schools. These are the kind of teams that tend to show up at the ALWS and win.

League City, Texas, Post 554 won the Western Region. To get there, they had to win a Texas state title. Texas only fields five Senior Legion Baseball teams. That means they could draw players from a massive area as long as the enrollment of that area remained under 7,500, then they only had a few state opponents to toss aside before facing stiff regional competition.

Meanwhile, Minnesota fielded 377 teams this season, and it offers a 16-team state tournament. Its champions truly work hard to get to the regional. Minnesota American Legion Committee members overwhelmingly favor keeping the 3,600 enrollment cap, because they favor more kids playing baseball rather than forming megateams aimed at winning the World Series.