Aberdeen Circus Sports Bar battled through the elements to gain a key 8-6 win over Baltic before succumbing to the Sioux Falls Brewers 9-8 in Amateur baseball regional action at Fossum Field on Saturday afternoon. The local squad then qualified for this week’s State A Tournament in Brookings when the Brewers eliminated Baltic 13-0 in the other contest.

It took a monumental effort from Chad Ellingson against Baltic. The Circus pitcher threw a whopping 144 pitches in a heat index of 106 degrees to help fuel the victory.

“It made it easy to loosen up, that’s for sure,” Ellingson said of pitching in the grueling elements. “I’ve always kind of been that way where it takes me a few innings to get warmed up, even in this kind of heat, but then usually by the sixth, seventh, eighth inning it feels pretty good, and that’s kind of the way it went today.”

Ellingson said he knew he would have to chew up some major innings heading into the contest because of a shortage of pitching on the squad.

“Every year it gets a little tougher that’s for sure,” Ellingson said. “I just knew coming into the game we were kind of limited on some arms. I just figured get out there and throw strikes and have some defense behind me.”

According to Circus catcher Kelly Coates, Ellingson was able to throw all three of his pitches for strikes and was not about to back down out on the mound.

“Man, he’s a blast to work with,” Coates said. “He had all three pitches working today. … There’s no back down in any of our guys, and there’s really no back down in that guy. He’s tough. He pitches hard, he pitches mean, and he’s a blast to catch.”

Baltic scored three runs in the third to wipe out a Circus two-run lead, but Aberdeen kept the pressure on with single runs in the fourth and eighth, and two runs in the sixth and seventh.

In the meantime, Ellingson continued to contain the Baltic offense, allowing single runs in the fifth, seventh and ninth, again by locating all three of his pitches.

“I tried starting out with the fastball, and it worked out pretty good, for location wise, and then curve and change kind of came on afterwards,” Ellingson said, “so it was nice to have all three and kind of be able to throw them whenever.”

When asked what the most pitches he ever threw in a game was, Ellingson responded, “When I was in college I threw like 179-180 in a 15-inning game,” he said. “I was a little more efficient then.”

Circus bolted out to a 3-0 lead against the Brewers on a three-run home by Corey Harrell in the first inning. However, Sioux Falls scored in six straight innings to build a lead.

Trailing by four with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Coates worked a walk that sparked a rally when Wolf’Don Thorson hit a three-run home run to close the gap to within one, but that’s as close as Circus would get.

Coates was the fire-starter, encouraging every batter that came up in the bottom of the ninth.

“Our guys are tougher than heck,” Coates said. “There wasn’t a guy in that dugout that was going to roll over today.”

So where does a guy get that much energy after donning the catcher’s gear and working 17 innings behind the plate in that type of heat?

“There’s nothing I would have rather been doing today,” Coates said. “This game is too much fun to not do it well.”

Coates led the squad with four hits on the day.

Circus will now wait until this evening to find out their upcoming opponent in the state tournament.

Baltic River Dawgs 003 010 101 – 6 15 6

Aberdeen Circus 011 102 21x – 8 7 3

Mike White, Jon Wilhelmsen (7) and Tristian Fitzsimmons; Chad Ellingson and Kelly Coates. 2B – Baltic River Dawgs, Beau Keith, Ty Schafer. 3B – Baltic River Dawgs, Schafer. HR – Aberdeen Circus, Jesse Babcock.

Aberdeen Circus 300 020 003 – 8 12 0

Sioux Falls Brewers 211 212 00x – 9 11 1

Evan Brandt, Casey Vining (3), Spencer Sudbeck (4) and Kelly Coates; Carson Askdal, Brian Feuz (6) and TJ Miller. 2B – Sioux Falls Brewers, Sam Siegel. 3B – Sioux Falls Brewers, Sam Baier 2. HR – Aberdeen Circus, Corey Harrell, Wolf’don Thorson.