Baseball 2025: Red Lake County rides hot start to first state championship

For a Red Lake County baseball team with no state championship history, when did the possibility become reality?

It certainly wasn't during a 4-14 season in 2022, when the seven juniors in the starting lineup at Target Field were eighth-graders.

It wasn't after steady program improvement brought the team to the cusp of last year's State Tournament with a one-run loss in the Section 8A final.

"Our goal," junior third-baseman Keegan Schmitz said, "was to get to state."

Even after avenging a loss in the section semifinals by sweeping Win-E-Mac to advance to the Minnesota State High School League's 2025 Baseball State Tournament, what happened in the Class A final on a cloudy Saturday, June 14 in downtown Minneapolis wasn't in mind.

"We never knew that we could even possibly be here," Schmitz said.

They never left. Red Lake County (25-5) accumulated double-digit hits for the third straight State Tournament game and claimed its first state championship with a 15-7 victory over New Ulm Cathedral (23-3) in the first game of the Minnesota State High School League's 2025 Prep Championship Series.

The fifth-seeded Rebels did know this entering the State Tournament quarterfinal game three days earlier in St. Cloud: "We belong here," junior pitcher Will Gieseke said. "We're here for a reason."

They proved that with a 10-0, five-inning win over No. 4 Legacy Christian Academy. They confirmed it the next day, hopping on a bus to Alexandria in the middle of a semifinal game to beat the rain and top-seeded Parkers Prairie, 4-3 in eight innings.

They erased most doubts by jumping on No. 2 seed New Ulm Cathedral for five first-inning runs and nine in the first two frames to take a 9-1 lead Saturday.

Still, it wasn't until the last inning when reality set in. Gieseke pumped his fists and shouted on his way to the dugout after recording his sixth strikeout to end the sixth inning with his team ahead 13-7.

"It was like, we could actually do this," Schmitz said. "Once in a lifetime. Never could have expected it but glad that it's here."

It's here because the Rebels rapped 14 hits and took advantage of any slight Cathedral misplay to take the extra base — or bases.

Gieseke set the tone by leading off with a double in the top of the first. He and Gunnar Halvarson scored on Ben Gullinsgrud's triple. Schmitz knocked in Gullinsgrud with a sacrifice fly, the first of his six RBI in the game.

"We've improved as a hitting team insurmountably in the last year or so," Gieseke said.

A walk, a hit-by-pitch, an error and a wild pitch helped the Rebels make it 5-0 before the Greyhounds could bat. Cathedral shook off its nerves by scoring in its half, but Red Lake County immediately loaded the bases in the second and Schmitz cleared them with a double to the wall in left.

"That's the best that we've started a game all year, if not in our lives," said Schmitz, "especially against a great New Ulm (Cathedral) team."

The Greyhounds got back within 11-6 with a five-run third, but Gieseke fought through it to pitch 6 2/3 innings with five earned runs and two walks. He also scored three runs and was 2 for 4 at the plate. The top four hitters in the Red Lake County lineup all had two hits, including a pair of doubles for Schmitz.

An uninformed observer would have guessed this team had done this before.

"We had no idea what (the State Tournament) was going to be like," Schmitz said. "We heard that the pitching was really phenomenal down here so we were super excited when, in the first game, we put up 10 runs. 

"Ever since then, I thought our bats were really good."

State-championship good.