Baseball 2025: Pine Island hits the target on team wristbands with Class AA state championship

The target was always within sight. Literally right on every Pine Island High School Baseball player's wrist.

Darin Hartzell is a baseball dad who's "in the background" but always willing to hit groundballs or open the gym. He ordered the maroon wristbands that read: "Pine Island Baseball. 6/14/2025" in gold with a pair of target icons.

"He made those things back in January," Pine Island senior Brandon Week said. "Five months later, he was spot on."

In other words, right on Target. 

On June 14, 2025, Hartzell cheered from the Target Field stands as the Panthers dogpiled in the middle of the infield, newly crowned Class AA Baseball state champions. No. 3 seed Pine Island (24-5) earned its first state championship with a 2-1 victory over No. 4 Glencoe-Silver Lake (22-5) in the second game of the Minnesota State High School League's Prep Championship Series.

"As a parent, it's second to the birth of our children," said Hartzell, whose son Jaxon started at shortstop as a sophomore and hit a double in the third inning. "I'm not sure I've ever held this feeling before. This is a pretty fantastic feeling."

Jaxon Hartzell, Week and the Panthers were once again outstanding defensively, playing error-free baseball and, for the 10th straight outing, allowing two or fewer runs.

Junior Alexander Knox started and scattered six hits and a run across four innings while striking out four. Talan Bond picked it up from there, allowing only two hits over the final three shutout innings for the save.

Week threw seven shutout innings and senior Lucas Sems an inning of relief in a 1-0 quarterfinal win over No. 6 Pierz on Tuesday at St. Cloud. Then Sems pitched nine innings on Wednesday as the Panthers broke through in the top of the ninth for a 6-2 semifinal win over No. 2 Perham.

"We're just such a deep pitching team," Sems said. "We played good defense and cleaned some stuff up over the season. Played really good defense and our pitchers knew they didn't have to do it all by themselves. They could give up a couple groundballs, give up a couple hits and still be able to put zeroes up on the board."

One of the only blips came in the top of the third inning of the championship game when Glencoe-Silver Lake's  singled and came around to score the tying run on a pair of wild pitches. But in the bottom half, Pine Island's Nicholas Thein drew a two-out walk, stole second and scored what proved to be the winning run on Sems' single to left field.

"We played a really hard regular season, played a lot of great teams from around our area," Sems said. "I think all those games were almost practice for this, practicing being under pressure and performing under pressure. I think that contributed to how we performed today."

Sems was 2 for 3 in the game, also roping a two-out triple in the first inning and scoring the game's first run on a dropped third strike and ensuing throwing error.

"It's the best," Sems said. "Being able to play here at Target Field, we were all so ecstatic for it and excited. The fact that we get to come home with a championship trophy, one that our school has never won before, is really, really special."

"It was really cool not just to do it for the guys on the squad but to do it for the whole community," Week said. "The championship banner is going to be hung up in the gym forever now. Even 20, 30 years down the road, people that are still attending Pine Island High School are going to see the '25 Baseball team won state."

And if you're curious about the exact anniversary, just ask a player who was on the field that day to see his wristband.