Big play sparks Bulldog district rally

District win is first in seven years

  NEW ALBIN – All it took was one big play to open the floodgates.

  Mired in a scoreless tie and hitless through four innings, the MFL MarMac High School baseball team used a 10-run fifth inning to score a 10-0 Class 1A, District 6 first-round victory over Edgewood-Colesburg at Shooky-Fink Field in New Albin.

  The Bulldogs (16-9) advance to the district semifinals for the first time since 2012, where they will face Wapsie Valley (26-12) Tuesday in Calmar at 5 p.m.

  “This is huge,” Bulldog coach Brandon Burke said. “It gives the kids faith that we can win postseason games and validates all the work they’ve put in the last four, five years.”

  Burke said his team was extremely tight coming into the game, and that showed at the plate where no Bulldog hit the ball out of the infield the first time through the lineup.

  “We hadn’t won (a postseason game) since 2012, they’ve put a lot of work in,” he said. “We’ve gotten 10-runned the last couple of years in the playoffs and getting over that hump was huge.”

For more of this story see the July 17 Outlook.