Minot High baseball earns one seed in WDA Tournament for second straight year

MINOT, N.D. (KMOT) - The WDA baseball regular season came down to the final innings. Four teams, including Minot High, entered the final day tied for first place.

The Magicians finished conference play 15-5, split the regular season title with Mandan and earned the number one seed in this week’s WDA Tournament based on head-to-head run differential with the Braves.

Minot has won 10 of its last 11 games, including six straight. The Magi weren’t atop the conference standings for most of the season like they were in 2024 when they also earned the number one seed. Of the team’s five conference losses, three came in the first two weeks of the season.

“We started off the season pretty slow with a couple hard losses, but we knew that we were good enough to just keep on rolling, so we stuck to our game plan and got some wins. It’s very important at the end of the season to get a hot team because that carries into tournaments and hopefully into state,” said senior Kellan Burke.

“We’re playing our best baseball when it matters. We got a lot of guys that can throw it on the hill, and our batters one through nine are consistently getting better,” said senior Carson Deaver.

The top six teams in the conference all finished within two games of each other. Teams only play one series against one another in the regular season, and senior Easton Panasuk said that there is still some unfamiliarity between the teams.

“It keeps you on your toes if you only play them twice. They obviously have good pitching, and we haven’t seen all their good pitchers. It keeps you on your toes, and everybody is good in the west this year, everybody’s solid,” said Panasuk.

The Magicians will play either Bismarck or Watford City in the quarterfinals on Thursday in Williston.