By Merchants Staff, Brandon Baumgartner

Jamestown, ND – The Jamestown Miller Lite Merchants won the Dale “Gopher” Lien Memorial Baseball Tournament this past weekend at Jack Brown Stadium.

The Merchants won all three games this weekend behind a dominant pitching staff and some decent hitting.

In the title game on Sunday, the Merchants defeated the Jamestown Elks 7-3. The M’s were in control all game long. Scoring single runs the first four inning to take a 4-1 lead after four.

The Merchants then added three insurance runs in the sixth. Two of those three came off the bat of Bryan Erstad when he crushed a 1-1 slider over the right field fence and into the river.

Brandon Baumgartner threw all seven for the Merchants to improve to (5-1) on the year.

On Saturday, the Merchants fried the Catfish and then snuck by Groton, South Dakota to earn a spot in the title game.

Against the Cass County Catfish the Merchants received a stellar outing on the mound from Chase Carpenter. Chase went all seven innings allowing only five Catfish to reach base all day.

The Merchant bats were led by Bryan Erstad yet again who went yard in the M’s four-run third to give them all the runs they would need as they won 5-0.

Against a scrappy Groton squad, the Merchants held on to a 4-3 victory behind another strong pitching performance. This time it was Sam Hirchert, Sam went the distance for the Merchants allowing no earned runs and striking out seven Groton batters.

The offense was supplied by Joe Vannett who hit a two-run homer in the third inning to give the Merchants a 4-1 lead at the time. Groton came back and scored two runs in the fifth to make it a one-run game, but Sam silenced the Groton bats in the last two innings as the Merchants held on to the one-run victory.

The Merchants have now won back-to-back Gopher tournaments. A special thanks to Shady’s Bar for hosting the tournament yet again this year.

The Miller Lite Merchants are back in action Wednesday as they will look to fry the Catfish yet again. First pitch is scheduled for 7:00PM.