GREGORY – When Milbank and Redfield square off in the first round of the State B American Legion Baseball Tournament on Friday afternoon, there will be more similarities than differences.

Not only do the athletes know each other well from competing in other sports in the Northeast Conference, but both baseball squads have several things in common.

The teams have identical records of 20-8, both have had solid pitching, and each received key contributions from the bottom of the order on the way to winning region championships.

“It should be a great matchup for the two of us,” said Milbank coach Ron Krause.

Milbank won the state title in 2016, while Redfield was runner-up a year ago.

Redfield was the top seed in the high school state tournament this spring, but the Legion tourney has a different feel, according to Redfield coach Tommy Gregg.

“I think there’s not as much pressure, because it’s double elimination,” Gregg said. “You kind of have to just take one day at a time where in the high school deal, it’s you lose you’re out of there.”

Redfield has a balanced offensive attack led by the likes of Owen Osborn, Camden Osborn, Keaton Rohlfs, Seth Siebrecht and Erik Salmen. The squad has overcome the season-ending loss of standout Peyton Osborn due to injury.

“You feel bad for the guy, because he’s not going to get this back,” Gregg said. “He’s one of our top players. He’s not only one of our top players, but he’s one of the top players in the state. It hurts, but I think what we’ve seen is the depth of our roster shine through.”

Elliott Komraus, Elijah Morrissette and Kellan Hurd have stepped up to fill the void.

Milbank is led by Merrick Junker, who was retired only one time throughout the region tournament.

“He’s a young kid, but he hits the ball extremely well and extremely hard,” Krause said of his clean-up hitter. “He never gets cheated with a swing. He’s got a great eye for the baseball. He’s really been our four-guy all season long and has done very, very well.”

The Milbank mound staff is led by Kaden Krause, Kellen Hoeke, Justus Osborn and Isaac Schulte.

While both teams can get people out, they are also capable of putting up big numbers while at the plate.

“Our pitching carried us a long ways,” Krause said, “but pitching doesn’t score runs, the bats do.”

Gregory hosts Platte-Geddes in the final first-round game. The tourney gets started with Humboldt-Hartford against Winner-Colome. Dell Rapids takes on Vermillion in the other opening-round contest, also in the top half of the draw.

“You look at the first-round matchup with Dells and Vermillion, on paper they’re probably two of the top teams,” Gregg said. “One of them is going to have a loss.”

Dell Rapids won the high school championship this past spring.

“Looking at the top half of the bracket, it’s really going to be a dogfight,” Krause said.

Gregg said his team will need to have timely hitting, retire opposing leadoff hitters and stay away from walking batters.

“We’re going to go as far pitching probably gets us,” Gregg said. “We want teams to chase us. We don’t want to chase.”

Milbank has seven seniors on its squad who want to go out with a bang. They’ve already reached their pre-season goals.

“We set our three goals: having a 20-win season, winning the region and getting to the state tournament,” Krause said. “We accomplished those three, now it’s just see how deep into the tournament we can get.”