Rosemount has 18 seniors on the roster. They helped the Irish to a shared South Suburban Conference championship at 12-6 with Lakeville South, a team they swept.

Rosemount’s 1-2 pitching punch of Valparaiso University commit Jack Thompson and Augustana University commit Carter Theisen are among a group of six pitchers Blume says the team holds in high esteem.

Thompson pitched seven innings of shutout ball in the winner’s bracket final, a 1-0 eight-inning victory against Eagan on Monday.

Theisen was near unhittable for most of the day Wednesday, shaking off an RBI double to the fence in the top of the inning by Ian George that was part of a two-run inning for the Lightning.

Theisen allowed three hits total with six strikeouts and three walks. He pitched perfect innings in the first, fourth and sixth.

George’s hit gave Eastview a short-lived 2-0 lead as Rosemount punched back with four runs in the home half. Chance Swansson hit a two-RBI double and came in to score when Blume lined a two-RBI single. There wasn’t much panic in the Rosemount dugout after Eastview went up by two runs.

“Just with these guys, they really care about each other,” Rosemount coach Chris Swansson said. “They weren’t going to give up, no matter what. We were down in some games, but they stayed in it. They’re a special group.”

The leadoff man Blume had nearly half of Rosemount’s eight hits, going 3-for-4 with four RBI. He shook off a groundout in his first at-bat to come up with a trio of two-out hits that added insurance runs in the fourth and sixth innings.

“I knew with guys on base, two outs, I was just focusing on I didn’t have to hit a home run, just base hits to score them and I came through,” Blume said.

Blume missed time this season with an ankle injury but looked spry with a stolen base on Wednesday.

“For him to come back and get back for today says a lot about his character and work ethic,” Chris Swansson said.

Coming back is something Eastview did a lot of during the season, too. It was a season filled with plenty of success, as evidenced by a 17-9 record and a regular season sweep of Rosemount.

It also featured some near misses. The Lightning finished a game out of first place in the conference and narrowly missed out on earning the top seed in the section.

“We were right there, too, for that,” Eastview first-year head coach Pat Strey said of the conference race. “We had a couple games we lost by one or two runs where we didn’t quite execute. We were right there.”

Eastview was upset by No. 7 seed Eagan in the first round of the playoffs before winning four straight to arrive at Wednesday’s game. That matched the Lightning’s season long win streak.

“I thought we had a really good shot game one,” Strey said of Wednesday’s championship. “If you can get to the second one, anything can happen. It would have been nice to get the first one and kind of set up our pitching a little bit more, but we played really well with our backs against the wall the whole year. Just to be here and make a run is awesome for our guys.”

Having to fight back through the elimination bracket burned Eastview’s top pitchers in advance of Wednesday. Dakota County Technical College commit Joey Ernster and Gustavus Adolphus College commit Joey Garofano were unavailable due to pitch count rules.

Dane Boraas was saddled with the loss despite pitching a perfect first inning. Eric Zipf pitched 1 ⅔ innings and Charles Novak went the rest.

Rosemount improves its record to 17-6 in advance of next week’s state tournament. The job isn’t finished, though Chris Swansson couldn’t help but get a little emotional thinking of the achievement his community has waited a decade and a half to witness again.

“I’ll tell you what, I think we all appreciate it,” he said. “We didn’t take anything for granted. I’m just so excited. Kids in this class I’ve known since they were little. I’m excited to see them have this moment.”