By Tom Schardin, Staff Writer

The Burnsville baseball team has been hanging around the .500 mark all season, but that won’t be good enough come playoff time.

The Blaze will close out the regular season on Monday, May 19 with a conference game at home against Bloomington Jefferson at 4:15 p.m.

The Section 3AAA playoffs start Friday, May 23. (Seeds are available at www.mshsl.org).

Burnsville has played in the Section 6AAA title game three of the past four seasons. But if the Blaze wants to make another long section run this spring, it will need to do better than playing .500 baseball.

“We’re trying to put together some wins,” said junior Jacob Dahl. “We’ve lost some close games. We’re battled tested. But we know have to play more consistent in the playoffs.”

Burnsville recently sandwiched one victory between two losses. It beat Chaska 6-3 on May 9, but came back to fall to Lakeville North 9-3 on May 12. The Blaze lost to Rosemount 2-1 on May 8.

The Blaze (9-8 overall, 8-8 in the conference) faces Chaska again on today, May 15 at home at 7 p.m. In the game, Burnsville was scheduled to face Chaska’s Brad Hand, one of the top pitchers in the state.

Hand is 5-0 on the spring with 55 strikeouts and 0.43 earned-run average. “It will be good to see what we can do against a pitcher like him right before the playoffs,” said Dahl.

In the loss to Lakeville North, the Blaze lost to Glen Parker for the second time this season. The left-hander allowed two runs over six innings in a 7-6 win back on April 17.

In the rematch, Parker allowed one run in 5 2/3 innings of work.

Junior Jack Lassonde started for the Blaze and took the loss, allowing seven earned runs in 3 2/3 innings of work.

Burnsville fell behind 8-0 before getting one run in the sixth and two in the seventh.

Sophomore Tom Sherman went two for two with two runs scored in the loss, while junior Craig Simonson went reached three times and scored two runs.

In the win over Chaska, junior Grant Larson threw a complete game, allowing seven hits and three earned runs to earn the victory.

Burnsville scored three runs in both the third and fourth innings to take a 6-1 lead.

Senior Anders Engberg had a two-run single in the third inning, which followed Zach Harazin’s RBI double.

In the fourth, Simonson belted a three-run double. Walker singled in both innings and scored.

Against Rosemount, Dahl took the loss on the mound, despite hurling five innings and allowing just two runs.

Rosemount scored both its runs in the bottom of the first inning. The Blaze got one back in the top of the seventh on Walker’s solo home run.

Senior Danny Hanson pitched a scoreless inning of relief in the loss.

“Our pitching is starting to come around,” said Dahl. “We’re holding our own. On offense, we just need to string more hits together. If we keep pitching well, playing good defense and get some timely hits, we can make a run in the playoffs.”