Northern Driveline pitcher Brent Loukus throws from the mound during a Twilight League quarterfinal game Tuesday against REL Inc./Mohawk Technology at Stanton Field. (Eddie O’Neill/For the Gazette)

STANTON — It was the traditional first game of the 2025 Twilight League playoffs in Stanton on Tuesday. The play-in game featured the fifth-seeded REL Inc./Mohawk Technology (3-9) against the fourth-seeded Northern Driveline (5-7). Northern Driveline pulled off a come-from-behind victory with some late-inning heroics, 7-6.

It was the tale of two games. REL scored all their runs in the first four innings and Northern Driveline tallied all their scores in the final four innings.

“This was a team effort,” noted Northern Driveline’s player-coach Evan Larson. “We shot ourselves in the foot in the first few innings, but we stayed with it and earned a win.”

After a scoreless first inning for both teams, REL jumped on the board with a three-run second inning. A lead-off walk to Rory Anderson, a base hit by Sam Kariniemi, and another walk to Owen Kariniemi loaded the bases for Travis Pietila. The shortstop came through with a double to deep left, scoring two. Pietila touched home two batters later on a misplayed fly hit to right field by REL pitcher Alan Jurmu.

REL added two more in the third as Dean Jurmu and Brandon Pietila both crossing home on a Rory Anderson double, making it a 5-0 game at that point.

Northern Driveline began their road to victory with Alex Nordstrom scoring in the third to make it 5-1. However, REL pushed their lead back to five with another run courtesy of Ned Larson in the top of the fourth. That is how the score stayed until the bottom of the fifth.

In that frame, Northern Driveline’s bats came alive to the tune of five runs and tied this one at six.

It started with base hits by Joe Halonen and Alex Nordstrom. In addition, there was a walk to Buzz Rajala. Halonen touched home courtesy of a Brent Loukus sacrifice fly to right. Back-to-back hit by pitches from REL’s starter Alan Jurmu put Alex Nordstrom and Rajala across the plate as runs two and three. Chad Nordstrom and Axsel Loukus were runs four and five after they reached on a fielder’s choice and an error respectively. The inning ended were it started with Halonen at the plate. However, his second-time up resulted in a strike out. While the game was just tied, momentum was definitely with Northern Driveline at that point.

“The bats came alive, and we just stuck with it,” noted Larson.

That stick-with-it attitude added the winning run in the bottom of the sixth as Alex Nordstrom had a base knock that proved to be the winning run.

While REL had bases loaded with two outs, they could not get their runner at third home in their final frame. In fact, bases loaded led to an easy final out as Travis Pietila hit a short hop back to REL’s pitcher Brent Loukus and Loukus fired to his catcher, Rajala, for the final out.

Up next

With the win, Northern will play the top-seeded Garnet Garage in a semifinal game Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in Houghton. In Stanton, Craig Heinonen-Coldwell Banker will face Houghton Building Supply-Stanton in the other semifinal game at the same time.