Eagan Bandits

Play Ball!
After nine years, Eagan rejoins Cannon Valley League this weekend
Posted 5/21/01 by Todd Abeln, Sports Editor

For the last nine years, if you wanted to play baseball in Eagan after high school you couldn’t. But that is all about to change.

Eagan has been without an amateur baseball team, but this summer an amateur team is returning to Eagan. The Eagan Bandits began the season today against Green Isle in Arlington, Minn. The team is part of the Cannon Valley League of the Minnesota Baseball Association. The league consists of teams from Apple Valley, Rosemount, Burnsville, Savage and Prior Lake. “We’re more than happy to have them back,” said Jim Wigley, president of the Cannon Valley League. “It was a key addition to our league.”

Nine years ago, Eagan had the Eagan Bulls as its town team, but it folded. Since then, nobody has attempted to bring it back — until now. “We’ve just been hoping to get them back,” Wigley said.

The idea of bringing amateur baseball back to Eagan was started by Wayne Butor and a couple of other people in Eagan. Butor recently saw his son graduate from Eagan High School and his opportunities to play baseball fade. “There was always talk about what to do after high school,” Butor said. So Butor formed a committee of baseball people to try to bring town ball back to Eagan. Butor contacted the Cannon Valley League to find out what they needed to do to join the league.

“We pretty much told them what they had to do,” Wigley said. What they had to do was find players, a field and some monetary backing. The committee decided to play its games at Goat Hill Park. It chose Goat Hill over the Green Monster at Eagan High School because Goat Hill had lights to play games at night.

“That’s a very suitable park,” Wigley said.

“Town ball requires games in the evening, which requires lighting,” Butor said.

As for players, the committee looked at recent graduates of Eagan who still lived in the area and wanted to play baseball. “It didn’t take long to come up with a dozen names,” Butor said. But the biggest problem was trying to find money to operate the team. Wigley estimated that it takes about $5,000 to start and run a town baseball team.

“Our biggest challenge will be start-up costs associated with developing a new program,” Butor said. “Not only will we face the normal operational costs, such as umpire fees, league fees, field-use fees and baseballs, but also we will be looking at substantial investment in equipment and uniforms.”

To help raise money, the Eagan Bandits formed four “club” levels to which people or businesses can contribute. The Bullpen Club costs $100, the Dugout Club costs $250, the Grandstand Club $500 and the Diamond Club is $1,000. So far the Bandits have received support from about 20 businesses and families to begin the team.

On Feb. 4, the Eagan Bandits were formally accepted into the Cannon Valley League. “They had the monetary backing and had a lot of Eagan kids to play ball,” Wigley said. “By February they had a good plan.”

After being accepted into the league, the Bandits began looking for coaches and players to put on the field. To coach the team they looked at a few people who have been involved in Eagan baseball for some time. But none of those guys could commit to the the team, so the committee looked somewhere else. While looking, it not only found one person willing to do it, but two. Rich Dolan and Paul Martens will coach together the first year. Both Dolan and Martens played baseball at Winona State University and graduated in 1998 and 1996 respectively. Both have played amateur ball in the past and will be player/coaches for the Bandits this season. Both will pitch for the team and will be among the oldest players on the team.

Nobody knows how good the team will be in its first season, but Butor thinks it will be okay. “I know town ball has some pretty competitive teams,” Butor said. “But with the blend of veterans we’re bringing in, I think we’ll have a good season.”

AV and Eagan reach state tournament

Posted: 8/18/03

by Larry Bergman
Special to Thisweek Newspapers
The Apple Valley Millers and Eagan Bandits earned State Amateur Baseball Tournament berths after the Section 5 playoffs July 28-Aug. 7 at Alimagnet Park in Burnsville.

Both teams will play in the Minnesota Amateur Baseball Association Class B State Tournament, which started Thursday, Aug. 14 at Northfield and Dundas.

Eagan and Apple Valley went into the six-team Section 5 tournament seeded No. 1 and 2, respectively, by virtue of the season standings in the Cannon Valley League.

Apple Valley defeated Eagan 5-1 in the championship Aug. 7 to earn the No. 1 seed out of Section 5 at the state tournament.

Apple Valley opened the scoring with a run in the third inning and added to that total in the top of the sixth when Tom Pauza singled and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Dan Beech then singled to drive in Pauza with what proved to be the winning run.

Corey Vogel drove in Beech with a single, and Al Judd drove in Vogel with a double to give the Millers a 4-0 lead. Eagan scored a run in the sixth, but the Millers matched that with a run in the seventh.

Nick Pauza went seven innings giving up only two hits while striking out six to earn the win. Andy Gretz had two doubles and Judd had two hits to lead the Millers.

At the state tournament, Apple Valley will be matched against the No. 2 seed out of Section 2 Sunday, Aug. 17 at Northfield. Eagan will play the Section 2 top seed Rochester in a game to follow.

Rest of the tournament

In the Class B tournament’s opening game of the preliminary round, Burnsville bested Lakeville 10-7. Rosemount followed with a win over Savage, 7-6.

On the second night of the opening round, Rosemount took the winner’s bracket game over Burnsville, 10-4, and advanced to play Apple Valley in the championship round.

In the loser’s bracket, on July 30, Lakeville’s Andy Schmidt pitched a no-hitter against Savage with a score of 9-0. Lakeville advanced to play Burnsville on July 31 and the Bobcats came away with a 9-5 victory to advance to the championship round to play the No. 1 seed, Eagan, Aug. 4.

In the first game of the championship round, Burnsville’s Jeff Deuth struck out 10 and gave up only one earned run in a 7-1 complete gave victory over Eagan.

Jesse Moyer had three hits and drove in two runs and Scott Glenn had three hits to lead the Bobcats’ offense.

In game two, Apple Valley scored the winning run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the ninth inning for a 3-2 win over Rosemount.

Dan Gegberg tripled in a run for the Blacksox before Tom Pauza hit a two-run home run to give the Millers the lead in the seventh. The Blacksox tied the game in the eighth that set up the dramatic win for the Millers. Mitch Peterson got credit for the win in relief of Joe Nielson. Tom Laughlin pitched a very good eight innings for the Blacksox.

In the winner’s bracket game Aug. 5, Burnsville took an early lead over Apple Valley with two runs in the first inning.

Starting pitcher Andy Gretz held off the Bobcats while Apple Valley scored single runs in the fourth and fifth innings to tie the game 2-2.

In the sixth inning, Tom Pauza singled and moved to third base on a single by Nick Pauza. Chris Lambader drove in Tom Pauza with a sacrifice fly, and Corey Vogel drove in Nick Pauza with a ground out to give the Millers the lead, 4-2. Gretz struck out six through eight innings, and Mitch Peterson got a save by getting the last two outs in the ninth.

In the loser’s bracket, Eagan came from behind to get an 8-5 win and eliminated Rosemount.

The Blacksox took an early lead with two runs in the first inning and added another in the second inning.

Each team scored runs to make the score 4-1 before Eagan scored five runs in the bottom of the fourth to give it a 6-4 lead and secure the win. Eric Swanson had three hits and Adam Keeler drove in two runs to lead the Bandit hitters. Tim Nielson had three hits for the Blacksox. Russ Berner started on the mound for the Bandits and earned the win.

In the next game in the loser’s bracket, Eagan jumped off to a commanding lead with three runs on five straight hits in the top of the first and then scored four more in the second to take the early lead, 7-0.

Burnsville picked up a run in the third inning but Bandit starting pitcher Mark Dolenc held the Bobcats in check before tiring in the seventh.

Burnsville scored single runs in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings but Todd Haldeman held on to preserve the 8-4 win for winning pitcher Mark Dolenc.

Dan Olson and Adam Keeler each had four hits for the Bandits while Dan Norsten and Matt Gardner both drove in two runs. Nick Gonzalez had three hits to add to the 18-hit Bandit attack.

State tournament unkind to Apple Valley, Eagan

Posted: 8/22/03 by Todd Abeln, THISWEEK NEWSPAPERS
The beginning of the Minnesota Baseball Associations Class B state tournament was disappointing for the two teams from the Cannon Valley League that qualified. Both teams, the Apple Valley Millers and the Eagan Bandits, lost their opening round games and now are one loss away from having their season come to a close. Apple Valley lost to Austin 4-3, while Eagan was shutout by Rochester 7-0.

Both teams will play their second games Thursday, Aug. 21 in Dundas after this edition of Thisweek Newspapers goes to press.

Apple Valley plays Marble and Eagan plays Duluth. If both or either team should win, their next game will be Sunday, Aug. 24. To keep track of the tournament and the games played go to www.minnesotabaseball.org.

Austin 4, Apple Valley 3
A late rally wasn’t enough for the Millers as they fell 4-3 to the defending state champion Austin Greyhounds. Being down 4-0 in the bottom of the ninth inning, Apple Valley got four hits and two Austin errors to score three runs. The tying and winning runs were on base when the final out was recorded. Andy Gretz and Tim Ryan both went 2 for 4 in the game. Apple Valley out hit Austin 11-4 but was unable to scratch a run across until the ninth inning off of Austin starting pitcher Scott Meyer who pitched all nine innings. Austin took a 1-0 lead in the second inning. They made it 2-0 in the sixth and then 4-0 in the seventh inning. All four runs were scored against pitcher Joe Nielson. Nielson pitched 6 1/3 innings, giving up only three hits and two earned runs. Gretz pitched the final 2 2/3 innings giving up only 1 hit and no runs.

Rochester 7, Eagan 0
Their first ever state tournament game didn’t go the way Eagan wanted it to, as the Rochester Royals pounded Eagan 7-0. Rochester scored lone runs in the first, third, fifth and seventh innings and added three more in the sixth to defeat Eagan. The Bandits’ starting pitcher Matt Gardner gave up five runs on six hits in just over five innings. The Bandits could never get any offense going against Rochester pitcher Andy Larson. Larson gave up four hits in seven innings while striking out eight and walking none. Eagan struck out 10 times in the game while getting five hits. One bright spot for the Bandits was the play of Brandon Paetznick, who went 2 for 3 in the loss.