Much like a Top 40 radio station (is that reference too dated?), the hits have just kept coming for the Jackson Bulls.
Jackson had 17 hits Saturday and combined with a handful of walks and a couple of errors, the result was 18-2 win in seven innings Saturday at Tracy and a sweep of their best-of-three amateur baseball playoff series.
"We did a job," said Jackson manager Scott Bahr. "We did what we needed to do. Sometimes you're the favorite, sometimes you're not going to be the favorite. We were the favorite this series, but Tracy has good guys. They do everything right, they're just building. It worked out well for us that we played as well as we did in this series."
It's the second straight year Jackson has defeated Tracy in the league playoff series round, having won last year's games by scores of 12-1 and 17-1.
The Bulls scored four runs in the first and three in the fourth before the Engineers scored two in the bottom of the fourth to end a streak of 51 consecutive runs over their last three games.
Jackson would then score four in the fifth, three in the sixth and two in the seventh.
Easton Bahr was 6-for-6 for the Bulls with two doubles, three stolen bases and five runs scored.
Andy Wolf had three hits including two doubles and walked for Jackson. Nate Monson recorded two hits including a double. Payton Handevidt had a hit, walked and was hit by a pitch.
Zach Neal doubled. Also getting hits for the Bulls were Evan Olesen, Chris Gumto, Briar Rowley and Alex Bretzman.
Jackson's pitching covered both ends of the spectrum
Trace Michelson made his first appearance ever on the mound for Jackson and it was a postseason start in a situation where the Bulls had a chance to clinch and advance.
Michelson went four innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on three hits and not walking a batter. He struck out three, all in the third inning.
Sean Minder would close the game for Jackson in his 22nd appearance of the season, tying Tom Schuller for the most single-season appearances in team history.
Jackson Bulls top single-season pitching appearances
22 Tom Schuller 2002
22 Sean Minder 2021
21 Tim Bird 1995
21 Tom Schuller 2003
21 Tom Schuller 2005
21 Ray Zalabowski 2018
In between, Lucas Gardner, Pat Boggess and Kevin Holm each pitched an inning. It was the 18th appearance of the season for Holm.
Scott Bahr is pleased with where the Bulls are at heading into the Region 13C Playoffs.
"I was really excited in this series about how we played defense," he said. "I was really excited about how we ran the bases. It was crazy how many extra bases we took, whether it was a stolen base or an extra base and then we pitched. We didn't give up many runs.
"We got to set our bullpen up the way we wanted to. All of my bullpen got innings during this series. Everybody got to work and now they get three or four days off and have everybody set up what's next."
Jackson advances to the Region 13C Playoffs that open Wednesday with Game One in another best-of-three series. Pairings will be determined on Monday.
The sweep in the league playoff round allows an extra day of rest for Jackson.
Pipestone, Hadley and the Milroy Irish also won their series in two straight. Windom and Luverne had byes into the region.
There are two Game Threes Sunday, with Lakefield hosting Ruthton and Fox Lake entertaining Adrian.
"Are we good enough to win that next round?," Scott Bahr said. "I don't know. I guess we're going to find out. But we have everything where we want to be. We get an extra day off and it's going to be hot. But, I'm guessing a bunch of our guys are probably going to go watch a ballgame, which is really cool. I love how that mesh is going with us. We don't know who we're going to play. We'll see how the games play out over the weekend and see what the seeding are on Monday."