Preview: Baseball looks to take down Southwest in first sections game

Today the Royals start their postseason run to the state tournament against Southwest at 4:30 at the new turf field.

The Royals finished up the season with a 10-10 record, but lost six of their last seven games. The Royals have yet to face Southwest this year, however, Southwest will be without their ace pitcher as he pitched a complete game last night against St. Louis Park in their 4-2 win.

The Royals came into the tournament ranked first with the Wayzata Trojans right behind them. The Trojans were able to beat the Royals in their most recent match-up, evening the series at 1-1. Ultimately, the Royals still had the better record, but were tied in conference records.

With the Royals having the new turf, the whole sections tournament will be held there. This gives the Royals a slight edge as they will have home field advantage in all the games.

“Every other team in our section isn’t as used to playing on our turf as much as we are,” said Tommy Auth, senior. “We know this field and all its bounces, hopefully, we can use that to our advantage.”

The winner of this game will face the winner of the Trojans vs either Robbinsdale Armstrong or Minneapolis Washburn.

“The mentality of our team coming in is that it’s our section to win. We’ve worked all year for this and we just want to be hot at the right time,” Auth said.

The Royals are trying to surpass last years rough ending after losing to the Wayzata Trojans in the section finals late in the game.