​Aug. 7—PARKSTON, S.D. — A tradition of baseball excellence in Parkston grows stronger with each passing summer.The Parkston Mudcats amateur baseball club is proud to be a part of it.Parkston, with approximately 1,600 residents, is one of the few towns with multiple amateur clubs. Last summer, the newcomer Rays, founded ahead of the 2023 season, won the 2025 Class B state championship.A longstanding squad with veteran leadership, the Mudcats and manager Brady Nolz said watching the Rays win it all last year didn’t change their motivation to make a run in this year’s tournament. Winning is the goal every time the Mudcats show up at Cadwell Park.”We’re just worried about taking care of ourselves,” Nolz said following the Mudcats’ opening round win over Elk Point on Wednesday. “Whoever won it last year, we’re going to come with the same motivation. We’re going to take it one game at a time and see what kind of run we can make in this tournament.””We’re motivated to come out here every single time,” added Mudcats captain Jeff Harris. “We know what we want to do when we get to this time of the year. We’ve got to show up and, hopefully, win five games.”In 2019, the Mudcats had a long streak of state tournament qualification snapped, and they also missed out in 2021 and 2022. This year marks the club’s third tournament berth in four years, as recent Mudcat teams are a direct reflection of top-to-bottom baseball success in the community. The current roster is a healthy blend of longtime contributors alongside several younger talents, many of whom were developed by the Parkston High School and Legion programs over the past handful of years.Collectively, it’s a crew that believes it can make a push through the tournament bracket and add to the history of Mudcats baseball. That journey started in earnest on Wednesday night at Cadwell Park. For the second year in a row, the Mudcats were tasked with playing in the opening game of the tournament. And for the second year in a row, they were victorious, outlasting Elk Point 5-4 in 12 innings.”All year, we’ve kind of leaned on our offense, but we also have enough pitching where we can put a guy on the mound at all times that we trust,” Nolz said. “As long as we throw strikes, hopefully, we can clean up the defense and just keep doing our thing.”Including their first-round tournament win, the Mudcats own a 16-7 record this summer. In defense of their 2025 state championship, the Parkston Rays are 14-9 ahead of a first-round game on Saturday. Both amateur teams have representation from the Parkston Post 194 American Legion team that just finished its season with a 22-11 record and a third-straight state tournament appearance. Those winning ways have permeated all the way through to the town’s youngest youth levels.Nolz believes that the town even has the talent and passion to field a third amateur team. But for now, attention is on the Mudcats, who are hoping to extend their summer by one more week.”Parkson base