MITCHELL — The field is wide open.
At 9-10 with one regular-season game left, it could be easy to look past Mitchell as a contender for the state title. But firmly entrenched in what appears to be a relatively evenly distributed set of teams heading into the regional tournament, Mitchell is as dangerous as any team there is.
Just how close is each team in the standings, though?
Mitchell, which sits at No. 6 going prior to its regular-season finale with O'Gorman, is less than 0.7 seed points ahead of the Knights, who are the No. 11 team in Class A.
The format of the regional tournament is a single-elimination pod of four teams, and in order to advance, a team has to win two games in one day.
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As such, having top-of-the-line pitching is pivotal, and it’s a format that makes teams which sit further down the standings but have one or two top-of-the-line pitchers much more dangerous.
“Besides maybe the last two teams out of the 16, (everyone) has a chance to make the state tournament,” Mitchell coach Luke Norden said following a win over Rapid City Stevens. “It’s that wide-open Nos. 1-14.”
Luckily for the Kernels, Gavin Soukup, Peyton Schroder and Dylan Soulek have all proven they can go out and win a game on the mound with limited run support. They all have an earned-run average under 3.00 with Schroder at 29 innings, Soukup at 28.1 and Soulek at 14.
Most recently, Soukup was on the wrong end of a 1-0 pitchers-duel loss to Rapid City Stevens, but he showcased an ability to keep his team in the game on the mound and didn’t surrender a run during his final six innings of work.
Schroder has done much of the same, picking up a win against Pierre — the No. 2 team in the standings — on a complete-game, two-hit shutout.
And if one of the two is off that day, Norden has the luxury of looking to Soulek, a senior who’s been just as good on the mound, sporting a 2.50 ERA. In one of his two starts this season, he gave up three earned runs to Sioux Falls Roosevelt in six innings, but they all came in the sixth after throwing five no-hit innings.
After a win against Stevens, Norden said Mitchell has sufficient pitching to be able to stay in every game it plays. And it's shown that, even against some of the best competition in the state.
The Kernels swept Pierre in a doubleheader earlier this season, with the second game being Schroder’s complete-game gem, and they’ve also beaten No. 5 Washington, No. 7 Jefferson, No. 9 Brookings and No. 10 Sturgis.
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There also needs to be an ability to perform in the clutch moments to win in the postseason. And it appears Mitchell has that, too.
Mitchell has multiple come-from-behind wins this season. Against Brookings, Mitchell battled back from down 7-3 to pull out an 8-7 win, and against Huron, Mitchell trailed 8-7 going to the seventh but put up three runs to nab a 10-9 win.
Even in their most recent game, the Kernels found themselves tied 2-2 after Stevens scored in the sixth to even the score. But Soulek delivered a walk-off home run to give Mitchell a dramatic 3-2 win — something that should likely give Mitchell a momentum boost going into the regular-season finale and potentially beyond.
And though the bats have gone somewhat cold over the previous four games (the Kernels have nine total runs in that span and were shut out twice), Mitchell is a team that can get hot quickly, evidenced by two separate winning streaks of three games this season. The offense is capable of scoring in bunches, too, showcased by an eight-run inning against Sturgis and a 10-run inning against Brookings.
There is some precedent for upsets in the spring high school state tournament. In four seasons of seeding the postseason, 1-through-16, the No. 1 seed has yet to win a championship and seeds 2, 4, 5, and 7 have won it all. In that time, nine of the 16 opening-weekend brackets have seen an upset and a lower-seeded team advance to the Memorial Day Saturday state semifinals. Mitchell was a No. 4 seed in 2022 making the state title game, only to fall to seventh-seeded Lincoln, who got hot late in the season.
Going in, Mitchell may not be the favorite, but with high-end pitching and the ability to get hot, the Kernels should prove a serious contender in a format where those two traits are two of the more important.
“They’ve got to have that understanding that we’re right there,” Norden said of his team. “No matter the matchup, I think it’s open for everybody for the taking.”
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