Perham baseball uses big fourth inning to top DGF in sections

Perham broke a tight Section 8AA playoff game open in the fourth inning, and the Yellowjackets used that surge to top Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton and move one step closer to another section title.

Brody Blume sparked the decisive bottom of the fourth, when Perham pushed across three runs and turned a close postseason matchup into one the Yellowjackets could control. The win kept the No. 1 seed from the South Subsection in the winners’ bracket and sent Perham into the semifinal scheduled for June 1 at 4:30 p.m. at Krueger Field in Perham.

Senior pitcher Drew Ellingson set the tone long before the offense broke through. He struck out 12 batters on just 83 pitches, a clean and efficient outing that let Perham stay patient until the lineup found the opening it needed. Against a DGF team seeded second in the South Subsection, Ellingson’s command gave the Yellowjackets the stability they needed in a game that had real postseason weight from the first inning on.

That combination of pitching efficiency, defensive steadiness and one timely inning has become familiar around Perham baseball. The Yellowjackets entered the 2026 section tournament as the top seed in their subsection, and this win reinforced why. Perham already showed its depth in April when it swept Park Rapids 11-0 and 10-0, with Ellingson throwing four innings and striking out six in the first game and Brody Blume working five scoreless innings with four strikeouts in the second.

The postseason resume behind this group is substantial, too. Perham won the 2025 Section 8AA title with a 3-2 victory over East Grand Forks, and Ellingson threw a complete game in that championship game. That was the Yellowjackets’ third consecutive section championship and their fourth Class AA state tournament berth since James Mulcahy became head coach in 2018.

For a program that has already proven it can handle pressure in June, the fourth-inning push against DGF mattered because it showed Perham can still create separation when the game tightens. The Yellowjackets now return home to Krueger Field with a chance to keep that postseason standard intact and extend another run that has become part of Perham baseball’s identity.