By Robert Williams, Editor

When seniors Andrew Aho and Chandler Ullrich were in fourth grade a new kid moved to town. Eight years later, that kid, Asher Blaine, and his two senior friends are leading the Frazee Hornets baseball team to the state tournament for the first time since last century.

“I moved here in fourth grade, but Andrew and Chandler have been playing together since kindergarten,” Blaine said.

The Hornets season has been one that needed senior leadership as the regular season was a rollercoaster or streaks, good and bad.

“Asher is the all-around good player, mind and everything, he’s a great kid and he’s our leader,” said Head Coach Andrew Mekalson. 

Frazee has a unique makeup up and down the roster. Many state qualifying teams will be at least half seniors, if not more. With only three, this year’s graduated players have a special meaning to the coaching staff and the underclassmen who not only look up to the seniors but are key reasons themselves as to why the Hornets are in the state tournament.

“Asher and our other two seniors Andrew Aho and Chandler Ullrich, we play for them,” said Mekalson.

Regarding the skid at the end of the season, it is something that exists only in the past for the Hornet nine. The team is concentrating on looking forward.

“We had a seven-game winning streak mid-season too,” Blaine said. “It was just a matter of flipping that switch and getting back to where we were.”

That’s what the team did in rolling an undefeated streak as the Section 5A underdogs all the way to the championship game.

“It’s awesome; we haven’t won a playoff game as a team until this year and we’re going to state. It’s pretty crazy,” Blaine said.

Being seeded No. 5 put Frazee in the situation of being the road team in all of their section games. Having succeeded as underdogs, it has now become a mantra. In a fitting manner, the Minnesota State High School League’s “random draw” for the bottom four seeds in the state tournament slotted the Hornets at No. 8. That is as underdog as a team can be at state.

“It fuels us,” Blaine said. “We’ve had all away games and we had our choice in the section championship if we wanted to be home or away and we chose away. We’re going to keep riding the away streak.”

The winning streak also keeps these three seniors connected to their school. Many fellow graduates from the Class of 2025 have moved on from school, but outside of the participating track and field kids and Ben Reierson at the state golf meet, these are the absolute last days of high school and what a great way to be spending them on the diamond.

“It keeps us in touch with Frazee a little bit longer,” Blaine said.

Reierson is a high school rarity. He is also a rostered baseball player and had to choose between state golf and the opening round of state baseball.

Having reached a shot at the pinnacle of the postseason, Blaine had an explanation for how a team that has trouble down the stretch of the regular season can catch fire at just the right time.

“Baseball is just a crazy sport,” he said.

The team has also taken up the mantra of their Coach. In interviews, they echo the exact same words like it’s right out of Coach Mekalson’s mouth.

“Stay humble,” said Blaine. “Stay level. Not too high, not too low and keep competing.”

The Hornets have a chance to make school history Wednesday afternoon and put a big shock into the state tournament field by taking out the top-seeded Parkers Prairie Panthers.

It is a script that reads just like their trip through the section field played out. The Hornets are attacking that plausibility the same way they did to start the postseason.

“Competing our butts off,” said Blaine. “Going with everything. We’ve had nothing to lose.”

Today’s game, scheduled for 4 p.m., can be streamed with a subscription on NSPN.TV or heard on the radio on Real Country 102.3 KRCQ.