Photo by Sam Thiel Hadley’s Trent Carlson fires a pitch during their Region 13C tournament game against Fairmont on Saturday. The Buttermakers fell to the Martins 17-0 in eight innings.

HADLEY — With tickets to state already in each of their back pockets, all that was left for the Hadley and Fairmont amateur baseball teams was deciding who would represent the champion of Region 13C and earn a first-round bye at the Class C tournament. After the top-seeded Martins took Game 1 with a 12-0 victory in seven innings on Wednesday, Fairmont continued to roll on the offensive end, using a 10-run frame to highlight a 17-0 win in eight innings over Hadley on Saturday and claim the top seed.

Despite deciding to rest some of its key starters for state, Hadley manager Myron Bennett credited Fairmont for coming ready to play and capitalizing on offense when it needed to.

“Some of the guys we just wanted to rest up for the state tournament; [Fairmont] has a really good squad over there, one through nine they can all put the bat on the ball and they showed that this series with the 12-0 win on Wednesday and then here,” Bennett said. “It was a pretty good game until that last inning, we just ran out of pitching and didn’t have the arms we needed.”

The Martins jumped out to an early lead, getting a single and a walk in their first at-bat before another single brought in the game’s first run. Fairmont continued to apply some pressure in the next inning, as a pair of errors made it 2-0 before an RBI double and an RBI single quickly pushed the Martins’ advantage to 4-0 after two.

Meanwhile, Hadley couldn’t get any momentum on the offensive end, going down in order in its first two trips to the plate. Jeremy Steinle would be the first baserunner to get aboard for the Buttermakers in the bottom of the third on a hit-by-pitch, but a double play by Fairmont quickly ended the threat for Hadley.

The Martins then extended their lead in the next half-inning with a solo home run before adding another run on a solo shot in the sixth to make it 6-0. Hadley would get its first hit of the game in the fourth on an Alex Petersen single before Garrett Johnson got aboard with a single of his own in the bottom of the sixth, but those would be the only hits on the afternoon for the Buttermakers.

After Fairmont got a run across in the seventh with a double and an RBI single, the Martins exploded on the offensive end in the eighth. Fairmont loaded the bases on four separate occasions and used six hits – including three 2-run singles – before a three-run home run capped a 10-run frame for Fairmont and pushed its lead to 17-0. Hadley then went down in order in the bottom of the inning to bring the game to a close and secure the first-round bye for the Martins.

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Hadley earned the No. 13B seed in the Class C tournament and will begin state tournament play on Friday night against 8C Randall at 7:30 p.m. at the Milroy Yankees ballpark. Going into the state tournament, Bennett said they just need to play similar to how they did in the Luverne series during the Region tournament and put together a strong effort on all levels.

“We just have to go back to that last series [against Luverne], we played well that series and hit the ball, so hopefully when we get up there things will change and we can start hitting the ball and play Buttermaker baseball,” Bennett said. “Our defense has been good the last month, so hopefully we can get some pitching and the defense stays good and we can get the bats going.”