North Polk, Chase Fjelland walk it off again to win 3A state baseball championship

CEDAR RAPIDS — Chase Fjelland. North Polk baseball legend.

The sophomore infielder will be renowned for years around the town of Alleman and surrounding communities for his heroics this week at the state baseball tournament. So will his team.

Fjelland won the Comets a Class 3A championship Friday night at Veterans Memorial Stadium with a run-scoring single in the bottom of the seventh that beat Sioux City Heelan, 5-4.

It was a bullet of a line drive over the left fielder’s head. If that sounds familiar, Fjelland smoked an identical hit in that identical spot to score two runs and give North Polk a quarterfinal win over Harlan way back on Monday morning.

Also 5-4.

“All these seniors helped me get to this point,” Fjelland said. “They all got on base, and I just did my job. It’s amazing. I can’t believe it right now.”

So let’s recap.

Fjelland began the 3A portion of this tournament with a walk-off hit. He ended it with a walk-off hit.

Legendary.

“How often do you even get that opportunity?” said North Polk Coach Wyatt Zoske. “You’re the guy up there both times. And for him to come through both times is unbelievable.”

“Oh, my god, I love that kid,” said North Polk’s Reece Wrage. “I have so much confidence in him every time he steps up to the plate.”

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This was the second state baseball title for North Polk (29-6), its first in 3A. The other came in 2014 in Class 2A.

These Comets won all three of their state tournament games by a run. They won their final five postseason games by a run.

Four of them were of the come-from-behind variety. Three were walk-offs.

Again, legendary.

“I mean, that’s just the fight we have, honestly,” said Wrage, a Kirkwood Community College signee who threw a complete game here. “We picked up the nickname ‘Cardiac Comets’ toward the end of the season. We just like to fight late. That’s how you have to win games sometimes. You have to claw and fight back, and that’s what we do. We just put our heads down and go all out.”

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North Polk, Chase Fjelland walk it off again in 3A state title game

North Polk scored twice in the bottom of the third inning for a 2-0 lead. Heelan (34-11) came right back with a three spot in the top of the fourth for a 3-2 edge.

The Crusaders added another run for a 4-2 lead in the fifth. North Polk tied it in the bottom of the inning.

Isaac Zoske singled to right in the bottom of the second for North Polk, then Wrage was hit by a pitch and Hunter Cook walked. Cue Fjelland.

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“If we played 10 times, we’d go 5-5,” said Heelan Coach Andy Osborne. “We are very similar teams. That’s what a state championship should be.”

Heelan actually outhit North Polk by a 10-5 margin. North Polk had four errors.

But in this tournament, the Comets put the ‘c’ in clutch.

“A lot of things have to go right. First of all just to be here,” Coach Zoske said. “The perseverance and the grit, been using the word ‘grit’ a lot this week. The teams that were here, this very easily could have been any one of those other teams, because everyone is good. It’s the gritty ones at the end. That’s our boys.”

Comments: jeff.johnson@thegazette.com