RIVER FALLS — After a 12-6 win over the No. 18 seed Rhinelander River Monsters, the No. 12 Spring Valley Hawks had their work cut out for them, needing to beat the No. 4 seed, defending Wisconsin Baseball Association (WBA) champion Tilden Tigers to advance to the final eight Division A teams.

It took every last ounce the Hawk players had in the tank, but after 15 innings and nearly five hours of baseball, Spring Valley squeaked out a 12-10 win.

“There’s no timer on [baseball], there’s no clock,” Thompson said. “A lot of emotions, a lot of ebbs and flows, a lot of good, a lot of bad, a lot of just ‘Hey, is this going to be it,’” Manager Erik Thompson said.

The game got off to a wild start right out of the gate, with Spring Valley posting five runs in the top of the first inning. Tilden then got the best of starting pitcher Cal Smith and reliever Treysen Witt, building a 10-6 lead through five innings.

“We didn’t get too high, didn’t get too low,” Thompson said. “I sometimes will allow myself to get a little too high or too low, given the situation, but a lot of the veteran guys, I lean on them to be kind of leaders for our young kids.”

The next two relievers that entered the game, Mark Eddie and Casey Ryan, shut the scorching Tilden offense down with the season on the line. Eddie pitched innings 6-10, and Ryan closed the game in innings 11-15.

Thompson said Ryan had pitched just one inning all year long for the Hawks, making his outing that much more heroic.

“He used to be one of our top pitchers, so he would throw every weekend for us,” Thompson said. “He understands how to do it, because he’s done it all his life… but for him to completely shut them down for, like I said, five innings or whatever it ended up being having only thrown one inning the previous three months is pretty awesome to watch.”

While the pitchers were holding the Tigers off, the Spring Valley offense was doing everything possible to claw back into the game. In the sixth inning, a Scott Sayles RBI groundout and a Witt single brought the scoreline to 10-8 in Tilden’s favor. In the seventh, Sayles hit a ground ball that led to a forceout at second base, but the throw to first for a double play went wide, allowing a pair to come home and tie the game.

Spring Valley would then go quiet for seven innings until the bats woke back up in the 15th. With runners on first and second and one out, Spring Valley fans saw just who they wanted step up to the plate. Blaine Guthrie, who already had four hits to go along with some walks, had his turn to untie the game. With a ball and two strikes, a curveball hit Guthrie’s arm, but the umpire ruled he leaned into the pitch, causing the at-bat to continue. Guthrie made the Tigers pay for the second chance to hit, roping a line drive double to left field, bringing the score to 11-10. A wild pitch brought in the 12th run, and that would be all the Hawks would need.

“Blaine’s kind of become our leader,” Thompson said. “It’s easy to be that when you’re a catcher, right, because you’re kind of the voice and our young kids look to him. I think Blaine’s one of the best players in our league, to be honest with you.”

Thompson said the team has established itself as one that will play hard till the last out, and they showed it Sunday.

The St. Croix Valley Baseball League showed their love for the game in the playoffs, with River Falls and Spring Valley making the top eight teams in Division A and New Richmond, Bay City, Osceola, Elmwood and Ellsworth all making the top eight in Division B. This came as no surprise to Thompson, who said the depth of the league made many of its teams that finished in the bottom half of the league standings contenders in Division B.

“It doesn’t surprise me that the majority of teams in Class B from our league made it, just because of the strength of our league,” Thompson said.

Thompson said Father Time will catch up to everyone, so they are fortunate to be able to play in the league and win these memorable games.

“We take it seriously. When people say you play baseball, they look at you like, ‘Oh you play softball or beer league?’ No, this is legitimate stuff,” Thompson said. “You’ve got really talented players. You have players and teams and coaches that take it very seriously, and they commit three or four of their months of their life to this.”

The finals span Aug. 16-18, with the Division A bracket playing in River Falls and the Division B bracket playing in Whittlesey and Rib Lake. As of Aug. 11, the State Final bracket does not have matchups set, but when they are, they can be found on wbabaseball.org.

Despite entering as the No. 12 seed of 24 teams in Division A, Spring Valley was the second best seed to advance to the top eight, with only No. 1 River Falls seeded better. With the pressures of a single-elimination bracket and the heightened competition, Thompson said the difficulty is only going to get higher from here on out.

“You don’t say this usually after a 15-inning game, but it’s going to be more difficult than it was today,” Thompson said.