The Glenwood-Lowry Legion baseball team had a great summer of baseball, winning the West Central Sub-State Tourney to earn a berth at state where the Lakers went 1-2 to place fourth.

At state, the Lakers beat Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton in the first game, 8-1, before losing twice on walk-off hits by the opponents.  Eden Valley-Watkins scored one run in the seventh and the winning run in the 11th to beat Glenwood-Lowry in the semifinals, 2-1, and then LaCrescent hit a two-out, three-run homer in the bottom-half of the seventh to win 6-4 in the third-place game.

Overall, the Lakers finished 21-8 this season.  The team was 1-2 and 4-4 early in the season before going 17-4 over their final 21 games, including the state tourney.  This was the second state trip in the last three years for the Legion team, which also earned a state berth in 2021 when it lost two close games.  “It was a great season and the guys played good at the state tourney, but we just ran into a pair of hot teams that came through with some key hits,” said coach Joe Alexander, who was assisted by Jeff Panitzke and Paul Johnson.  “All the teams at the state tourney were good and I’m proud of the guys for the great season they had.”

Season statistics

The Lakers batted .311 as a team this season with five players batting over .300 for the summer.  Glenwood-Lowry also scored 203 runs this year, averaging just under seven runs per game, and gave up 100 total runs, or about 3.4 runs per game.

Dylan Alexander led the way with a .500 batting average and .564 on-base percentage.  Also batting .250 or better this year were PJ Johnson (.385), Conner Erickson (.360), Noah Jensen (.320), Aron Majerus (.308), Levi Johnson (.281), Ryland Martin (.278), Alex Panitzke (.274), Connor Frey (.261), Riley Dell (.250), Austin Weber (.250) and Jacob Blair (.250).

And, other players with an on-base percentage at .400 or better were Weber (.571), Jensen (.520), PJ Johnson (.478), Erickson (.448), Caden Larson (.444), Levi Johnson (.405), Martin (.402), Blair (.400) and Dell (.400).  Alexander, who had a slugging percentage of .792, also led the Lakers with 96 at-bats, 48 hits, 31 singles, three triples, four homeruns and 32 runs scored and was also second with 22 RBI and 10 doubles.

Panitzke had a team-high 115 plate appearances this year, while PJ Johnson led the team with 12 doubles and 25 RBI, and Jack Majerus had a team-best 15 stolen bases.

The top pitcher for the Lakers this summer was PJ Johnson, who was 8-1 for Glenwood-Lowry with a team-best ERA of 1.11 and 57 strikeouts.  Alex Panitzke was 4-2 with a 2.02 ERA, while Ryland Martin was 3-3 with a 2.9 ERA, Dylan Alexander was 2-0 with a 2.03 ERA, Jack Majerus was 1-2, and Jacob Blair, Connor Erickson and Levi Johnson were all 1-0.

Check out more photos in our photo gallery!