St Cloud Daily Times

State baseball notes: La Crescent's program on a great run

MINNEAPOLIS - The La Crescent High School baseball team may have lost a state title game on Wednesday, but its program still has plenty of luster.

La Crescent's 6-1 loss to St. Cloud Cathedral in the MSHSL Class AA championship game at Target Field was its second championship game appearance in the past three seasons and its third consecutive state tournament appearance.

Over the past three seasons, La Crescent has a 72-17 record and one state championship in 2009, a 5-3 victory over Fergus Falls at Dick Putz Field in St. Cloud, Minn. The Lancers finished 25-4 this season.

Troy Traxler, Travis Kruckow, Paul Johnson and Jordan Gittens have been starters for the past three seasons. Traxler, a junior, is the only one of the four who will be returning.

"It's been very special, and there's nothing like it," Traxler said. "Getting here three years in a row, itself, is amazing, but to get to the championship game twice and to play at Target Field is unreal. We're just having the time of our lives. I'm just trying to suck in as much memories as I can."

Over the past 20 years under coach Rick Boyer and George Horihan, the Lancers' longtime coach before Boyer, the Lancers have been an elite program.

"We've had some incredible seasons," Boyer said. "We've had a good baseball school for a lot of years. We're just going to continue to do what we've been doing."

BOYER'S DILEMMA: Boyer had the task of choosing between junior Eric Veglahn and Kruckow for his championship game starting pitcher.

Veglahn, who was 9-1 with a 0.95 ERA coming in, got the call and pitched well at times but didn't make it out of the fifth inning. He went 4 2/3 innings, allowing six hits, six runs, two earned runs and three walks to go with two strikeouts. Kruckow, who came in with a 9-2 record with a 1.19 ERA, pitched a perfect sixth inning.

"It was a tough decision," Boyer said. "We have two very good pitchers with a good ERA. Those are decisions we have to make and live with as coaches. I would've liked to see what would've happened if Travis was out there, but Eric was our guy and he should get better because of this."

THOME THE HITTER: Not only was St. Cloud Cathedral's Andrew Thome's presence felt on the mound, where he allowed two hits and no walks while striking our four over seven innings, it also was felt in the batter's box. Thome, a .443 hitter who's headed to NCAA Division I North Dakota on a baseball scholarship, laced a run-scoring double down the right-field line in the third inning and was walked intentionally in the four-run fifth inning.

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