The Aberdeen Smittys are heading into the final week of their regular-season baseball schedule and there is a lot at stake before the playoffs get underway.

The Smittys are in a tight battle for home-field advantage in the region. Aberdeen is in the seventh position, the final spot which secures home field for region action.

“Every game at this point matters. We don’t want to drop to where we’re the away team for the playoffs,” said Smittys coach Nathan Gonnelly. “We’d like to keep that home slot for us. That’s kind of the mentality of it. At this point every game really does matter.”

The Smittys host Sturgis on Thursday night, and Spearfish for a Friday afternoon doubleheader at Fossum Field. They conclude the regular season with doubleheaders at top-seeded Harrisburg Gold on Sunday, and Brandon Valley on Monday.

The best two of three region is set for Thursday through Saturday, July 25-27. The winner of that region advances to the State A tournament later this month in Brookings.

“If we can go out there and win more than we lose, I think we have a pretty good chance of staying where we’re at,” Gonnelly said. “Every game is important.”

The Smittys have had an interesting season. They lost three of their first four games before beating every team in sight during a 14-game winning streak. Since then it’s been a mix of everything on the way to a current mark of 27-17.

“That’s something too, where we’re trying to get back to that where we just beat every team in sight. That’s kind of how it’s panning out for us, because you can’t beat every team all the time, you have the ebb and flow with the season a little bit,” Gonnelly said. “We’re trying to kind of get back to that (early-season streak) and I think with these next couple of doubleheaders coming up, it will give us a chance for us to get some momentum before we head into the playoffs.”

The Smittys have toughened up against some quality competition this year, including the recently concluded Gopher Classic in the Twin Cities. Gonnelly believes those experiences will help his squad.

“I told the guys all week, too, that Gopher Classic we were at, that’s like a mini-state tournament. We’re going to see everybody’s aces the first couple of days. We’re going to see some stiff competition, and that’s just something to where we always learn something from it,” Gonnelly said. “You’ve got to minimize mistakes on defense. You’ve got to be able to hit the ball well. You’ve kind of got to put everything together in order to win those tough games against some tough pitchers. It was a good experience for us, because now we saw some legitimate velo from a lot of different towns around the Midwest, and I think it just helps us prepare for playoffs and the state tournament.”

While the Smittys have had a few fielding and pitching issues here and there this summer, the one constant has been the team’s offense, which has produced double-digit run totals on a regular basis.

“That’s something that we talked about a couple months ago,” Gonnelly said. “We’re going to try and be the team that averages about 10 runs a game, because it’s awfully tough to compete with a team that can produce on offense.”

Gonnelly said there is still work to be done, trying to become more consistent in all aspects of the game as the team is preparing for a strong postseason surge.

“Everything is a constant. You’re always kind of constantly working on everything,” Gonnelly said. “There’s days where we go out there and the ball looks like a golf ball and then there’s other days where it looks like a beach ball. It just depends on the day and we’re going to constantly continue to get better and continue to work on putting it together, so we’re ready to compete at the highest level for state.”