Gladstone shortstop Jaxdon Quigley swings at a pitch against Iron Mountain on July 1, 2025 at Howes Field in Gladstone. (Adam Hinch/Daily Press)

GLADSTONE — The field continues to shrink in 12u Little League district action Gladstone. 

In Tuesday’s action Gladstone defeated Iron Mountain 4-2 in the winner’s bracket game and in the losers bracket Schaffer eliminated Norway in a 3-2 game.

Gladstone put up two runs in the top of the first inning, with both runs scoring on wild pitches. In the second inning, after Iron Mountain put one run across, Elliott Pankonien hit a fly ball that rolled to the fence for an inside the park home run extending the Gladstone lead to 4-1.

“Those were the game winning runs,” Gladstone coach Dave Ellison said. “Elliott was actually our number two hitter for the past while and he wasn’t hitting the best the last few games so I said to him moving back in the order takes some of the pressure off and just swing and have fun and he came up with a huge hit.”

Iron Mountain added one run in the third when Ethan Dennocenzo hit a ground ball to bring in a run to cut the deficit to two but were unable to close the gap.

In the second game, Norway got on the board first on an RBI single by Noah Dumke.

Schaffer responded in the third inning on a pair of runs by Landon Bruce and Carter Weinkowski to put Schaffer up 2-1.

“That was a great game for us today,” Schaffer coach Jason Davis said. “We made plays when we needed to. I couldn’t be more proud of these kids’ effort today.”

Norway responded in the fourth inning when Bowen Griese drew a walk then scored on a pair of throwing errors to tie the game at two.

Schaffer loaded the bases in the fifth inning and Zander Larson came through with a two-out single to score a run to put Schaffer up 3-2.

“It felt really great,” Larson said. “Norway is a very good team and to get a big hit like that was fun.”

Norway had Mason Schultz draw a walk in the sixth inning and with two outs Schultz came home on a hit by Dumke but Schaffer’s Caleb Cannon threw a bullet to the plate and catcher Bentley Mott applied the tag on Schultz, who was called, out giving the win to Schaffer.

“I have been practicing really hard,” Mott said. “This game means a lot and we knew it was going to be a very tough game and that we had to play our best game.”