St. Michael-Albertville Baseball in Section 8 Final Four

St. Michael-Albertville baseball continues its superb spring season Saturday with a semifinal game in the Section 8-3A tournament in St. Cloud, where they’ll face top-seeded and top-ranked Bemidji (20-1).

The game is set for 11 a.m. at the MAC on field G1.

The tournament, which becomes double elimination now, opened Monday in St. Michael as the Knights (14-7) edged Alexandria, the No. 5 seed, 3-2.

STMA, ranked No. 4 in the section, can stay alive via the losers bracket if they can’t pull off the upset over the Lumberjacks. The bottom half of the bracket features Rocori vs. St. Cloud Apollo in the No. 2 vs. No. 3 game. The Knights haven’t faced Apolo, but aced out Rocori 2-1 in the season finale.

Paul Schumm’s squad earned the Mississippi 8 Conference crown this season with an impressive 10-2 mark in conference play. One of those loses, to Monticello, was in extra innings. The other was an 8-4 loss early in the season to Big Lake.

Since losing to Cloquet to close out April, the Knights have been solid in May. They haven’t lost by more than one run, and the sealed up the conference with big wins over Cambridge and Buffalo in one week.

Leading the way on the hill has been pitcher Jacob Dzubay. The younger Dzubay has mixed his pitches well and developed over the last two years as the staff ace.

At the plate, Tyler Dallum and Jeff Hackenmueller have been big for the Knights, who finished the regular season 13-7 overall.

“We’re not big, but we know we need to play solid defense and string hits together,” said head coach Paul Schumm. “That’s our game. So if we can get a big inning or two, and avoid their big inning, that’s going to bode well for us.”

So far, that formula has work for Dzubay or any other pitcher Schumm has used this season, as the defense behind the pitching staff has remained solid in most contests this year.

“That was one thing we really wanted to get better was our defense,” said captain Shawn Morris. “This is a team that’s a lot more focused this year vs. last year and we’re paying attention to the details. We had a lot bigger plans last year. We have to make more noise this year.”