Luverne’s record-breaking season came to an end last weekend after they lost a double-header to Trinity in the AHSAA semi-final playoffs.

LHS head coach Andre Parks has been more than pleased with both the team and the season overall.

“I told the kids after we finished that although I know it hurts right now, in a couple of weeks, they’ll look back and see we had a successful season,” he said. “This has definitely been a season of firsts in Luverne baseball, so they can hold their heads up.”

According to former coach Glenn Daniel, a Luverne baseball team has not made it to the fourth round of the playoffs since 1965.

“We broke our record of 20 wins two years ago, and we’re really proud of that,” Parks said.

The Tigers ended their season with a 25-7 record.

And it was the Trinity Wildcats who put an end to that successful season with a 10-2 win in Game One and an 11-6 win in Game Two over the Tigers.

Luverne’s Ryan Waters and Monterio May managed the only four hits in game one.

“That was the worst we had swung the bat in a while,” Parks said. “Their pitcher kept us off balance in the first game.”

By the fourth inning, Parks said the Tigers lost their focus, “and we began making errors and just couldn’t pull ourselves back together.”

Trinity’s Jeremy Morgan got the win on the mound.

“Monterio May pitched until the sixth inning, but we couldn’t make the plays behind him,” Parks said.

During the second game, Trinity scored 8 runs in the third inning.

“We had several errors in that third inning, and Trinity is the kind of team that’ll make you pay, and they did make us pay during the third,” Parks said.

Ryan Waters, Evan Richardson, Matthew Sipper all had 3 hits in the second game, while Zane Sexton and Corey Hale added two hits each.

“We got down in the same holes we did the night before, but I was so proud of them for not giving up,” Parks said. “We were threatening there even to the last inning, but we just couldn’t get a runner across the plate.”

“We had a good year, a great run,” Parks said. “I told them at the beginning of the season that we were a bunch of baseball players who dressed alike but were not much of a team, but somewhere in the middle of the season, we came together and became a team.”

“I believe we can say later on down the road that a championship team foundation was laid in 2009.”