Bulldogs sweep two games at Tony Kawlewski Field in Henning

Otter Tail Central left Tony Kawlewski Field with more than two wins on May 8. The Bulldogs beat Bertha-Hewitt/Verndale 10-3 and Frazee 4-2 in a doubleheader sweep that underscored how much sharper Ryan Hendrickson’s team has become as the season moved into its conference and section stretch.

The opener showed the Bulldogs at their most complete. Senior Quenten Beske struck out 12, Otter Tail Central racked up 14 hits and stole eight bases, and the defense stayed spotless with zero errors. The combination of power, speed and clean work in the field gave the Bulldogs control early and kept the pressure on Bertha-Hewitt/Verndale throughout the game.

The second game was tighter, but the result was the same. Otter Tail Central again played error-free baseball and finished the night with a 4-2 victory over Frazee, completing a sweep that gave the Bulldogs a strong push in a busy part of the schedule. With conference and section games lining up in the middle of the season, the two wins carried more weight than a normal spring doubleheader.

Hendrickson called the night “a really good step forward” and pointed to the Bulldogs’ pitching, clean defense and contributions across the lineup. That mattered for a program trying to build on a solid 2025 season, when Otter Tail Central went 11-8 overall and 8-6 in the Park Region Conference. Hendrickson was entering his tenth year as head coach, and performances like the one in Henning suggested the Bulldogs are not far from the kind of consistency that turns a good season into a dangerous one.

The setting fit the moment. The games were played at Tony Kawlewski Field, the Henning ballpark renamed in 2020 after Anton “Tony” Kawlewski, a longtime baseball supporter who played and coached amateur baseball in the community. Kawlewski died March 31, 2025, at age 89, and his connection to Henning baseball remains woven into the field that now carries his name.

For Otter Tail Central, the sweep was a reminder that the Bulldogs can win in multiple ways. Beske handled the mound in the opener, the defense stayed clean in both games, and the lineup kept producing enough offense to control the doubleheader from start to finish.