NORTH MANKATO – There are times where Forest Lake coach Sean Hall said his team gets in the habit of trying to do a bit too much offensively.

“Everyone is trying to hit a five-run homer,” Hall said. “Then, all of a sudden, our offense stalls.”

That’s likely what took place in the Class 4A quarterfinals against unseeded Eden Prairie at Caswell Park. The second-seeded Rangers scored three runs in the first inning, then nothing over the next four frames.

Until Brie Bakke stepped up to the dish with a pair of runners on in the sixth.

The wind was blowing strongly and was rather unpredictable Wednesday in North Mankato. So Bakke’s mentality stepping into the box was rather simple:

“I was thinking, ‘Think right side, think right side, think right side and use the ground,’” Bakke said. “Honestly, I think more team swing than me swing. I do what’s best for the team.”

Bakke stuck to her plan, laced a single through the right side of the infield, and the Rangers gained an insurance run to go up 4-1.

Ava Stenglein followed that up with an RBI single of her own. The junior right fielder went 2 for 3 with three runs batted in as the Rangers went on to win, 5-1.

“It’s nice. Now we know that we have to work a little bit harder, that we struggled to generate runs,” Bakke said. “But now we know that we can work well as a team in those stressful situations.”

Forest Lake will meet third-seeded Rogers at 2 p.m. Thursday in the Class 4A semifinals in North Mankato. Rogers topped Edina 7-0 on Wednesday.

Rangers ace Hannah Tong earned the win in the circle, throwing 6 ⅔ innings of three-hit ball.

Eden Prairie mounted only two serious threats in the game. The first came in the fifth inning, with the Rangers leading 3-0. A pair of errors, a walk and two hits – one being a bunt single – moved Eden Prairie to within 3-1, and the Eagles had the bases juiced with one out.

It was at that point when Tong decided to trust her defense and truly attack the strike zone.

She struck the next batter. And then her defense shined for the final out of the frame – her defense, specifically. Tong nabbed a line drive that came right back to her.

“That was a little scary,” Tong noted, “but sometimes I can trust myself.”

“She’s a bulldog. She’s going to come through when you need her to. She comes up with big hits, and she’s just a gamer,” Hall said of his pitcher. “Today maybe wasn’t her best game ever, but I know, when the chips are down, she’s going to come through for us.”

Tong loaded the bases with two outs in the seventh, bringing the tying run to the plate for Eden Prairie. At that point, Hall turned to Avery Muellner. The sophomore has long been a critical component of the Rangers’ rotation, but an arm injury has kept her out of the circle for most of the campaign.

Entering Wednesday, she’d tossed one inning all spring.

And in a pressure-packed spot in the state quarters, she induced a harmless fly ball to close out the contest.

“If she can do that for us, that’s what we need from her,” Hall said. “She has worked her butt off to get back, worked on her PT and everything else. She’s just an incredible pitcher, and an incredible player.”

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The St. Paul Police Department posted on Facebook Wednesday afternoon asking for the public’s assistance in identifying a person involved in a hit-and-run incident that struck two pedestrians, seriously injuring one just after midnight on May 5.

The St. Paul Police Department is asking the public’s assistance in identifying a person of interest in a hit-and-run incident that took place on May 5, 2024. The woman pictured is the person of interest in this case. (Courtesy of the St. Paul Police Department)

According to police spokesman Sgt. Mike Ernster, a person driving a dark-colored vehicle on Idaho Avenue West when struck the pedestrians and fled the scene northbound on White Bear Avenue.

Beforehand, the driver was believed to be at White Dragon Bar in St. Paul.

St. Paul fire medics took the two pedestrians, women ages 47 and 51, to Regions Hospital. Updates on the conditions of the two pedestrians were not available as of Wednesday afternoon.

Anyone who believes they have information regarding this case is asked to contact Sgt. Jermaine Davis at 651-266-5693.

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As classmates and family of a 14-year-old critically hurt in a Lakeville scooter crash cried outside a hospital, a chaplain said Max Wilson was reaching his childhood dream Wednesday of becoming a superhero: He wouldn’t survive his injuries but he would help others live as his family decided to donate his organs.

“Let’s pause and bless this time of waiting and bless the gift of life Max’s body may give to others,” HCMC chaplain Sarah Lindberg said to the crowd gathered. “Max, you are leaving this earth much too quickly. … Help us to let go of your life on earth, to sense the heroic presence of your spirit and allow your body to be a gift of health to another.”

Max Wilson (Courtesy of GoFundMe)

Erik Wilson, Max’s uncle, told the group that the family is grateful for their support. “He was a wonderful, wonderful person” who will be greatly missed, Wilson said. Many in the crowd wore red Lakeville North High School shirts.

Max was riding a motorized scooter Monday about 3:15 p.m. when a vehicle collided with him at 179th Street (Dakota County Road 9) and Granby Lane, according to Lakeville police. He was taken to HCMC.

“We are all heartbroken by the tragic loss of Maxwell (Max) Robert Wilson,” Brittany Inman, who is organizing a fundraiser for the family, wrote on GoFundMe.

Max’s parents lost “their precious son,” and his sister “has lost her only brother,” Inman wrote.

“He was so full of life, happiness and joy,” she continued. “If you were one lucky enough to have known Max, you knew he lit up every room he walked into. Max loved sports, his family, his dogs, his friends and adventures.”

Due to the extent of his brain injuries, Inman wrote it pained her to say that Max didn’t make it.

Flag ceremony

Young people wearing Lakeville North red shirts gather along with the family of Maxwell (Max) Wilson, 14, outside HCMC in downtown Minneapolis on June 5, 2024, while a “Donate Life” flag was raised. (Mara H. Gottfried / Pioneer Press)

At Wednesday’s flag-raising ceremony outside the hospital, the group read in unison from a program: “We wait and hope …”

“For health to be restored to others through this selfless gift,” Lindberg said, competing their prayer.

“We wait and hope,” said the group, “for your spirit to be at rest,” the chaplain said.

“We wait and hope,” those gathered said, “for our grief to be lessened,” Lindberg said.

“We wait and hope,” said those in the crowd, “for the peace that goes beyond our understanding.”

Lindberg invited Max’s family to touch a LifeSource “Donate Life” flag before it was raised on a flagpole outside the downtown Minneapolis hospital. Families can opt to have such ceremonies to honor the “incredible decision” of organ donation, said Sarah Sonn, communications director at LifeSource, which is based in Minneapolis.

Young people wearing Lakeville North red shirts gather along with the family of Maxwell (Max) Wilson, 14, outside HCMC in downtown Minneapolis on June 5, 2024, while a “Donate Life” flag was raised. (Mara H. Gottfried / Pioneer Press)

“Let this flag be a reminder of Max’s willingness to offer this heroic gift,” Lindberg said. The flag will fly for 24 to 48 hours.

An Honor Walk was then held inside HCMC. That’s a time when hospital staff and others silently line the pathway to the operation room as a patient is wheeled there for organ recovery, according to LifeSource. Wednesday’s was the largest Honor Walk a LifeSource donation liaison told Sonn she’d seen.

Investigation continues

The investigation into the crash continues. A woman driving a vehicle west on 179th Street collided with Max as he crossed 179th Street from south to north on Granby Lane, police said of initial findings. Stop signs control traffic going north and south; east and westbound traffic doesn’t have stop signs.

A helmet wasn’t found at the scene of the crash, according to police. The woman driving the car didn’t report injuries.

The GoFundMe is for medical and funeral expenses. “His family works tremendously hard and this is something nobody should have to go through,” Inman wrote.

Becoming an organ donor

People can sign up to be an organ donor online through the LifeSource registry. They can also check the box to be a donor when they get or renew their Minnesota driver’s license, or when applying for a hunting or fishing license in Minnesota.

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Officials with Fairview Health Services and Acadia Healthcare gathered a few blocks north of the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul on Wednesday for a ceremonial beam signing — a way to highlight of the ongoing construction of what will soon be one of the state’s largest purpose-built inpatient mental health hospitals.

The future hospital’s steel girders form a commanding sight at 559 N. Capitol Blvd, but given the project’s politically sensitive history, the absence of public health and state, city or county elected officials from the symbolic signing was notable.

Located at the former site of Bethesda Hospital, the 144-bed Capitol Park Mental Health Hospital will offer inpatient, intensive outpatient and “partial hospitalization” mental health treatment, including services for patients who are ready to leave an acute care setting but who may still need in-hospital services for three to six hours per day, three to five days per week.

“We are all pioneers in this work,” said Jeffrey Woods, an Acadia operations executive and former psychiatric nurse, noting that the Franklin, Tenn.-based healthcare and hospital chain operates 260 hospitals and treatment centers nationally and is now the largest provider of mental health treatment in the country.

“We are literally in the beginning phase of what we expect to be many, many generations … of (innovation) and reducing stigma,” Woods added, addressing a crowd of officials from the two healthcare networks and general contractor J.E. Dunn Construction Group.

Fairview officials said the three-level facility will open next summer at a time when inpatient mental health services are in high demand statewide and many youth and adults have been unable to access needed services.

Mental health advocates remain opposed

That said, the hospital — which will not have ambulance bays for emergency transport — has not been without controversy. Citing the need for new mental health beds, the Minnesota Department of Health approved the facility in September 2022 while acknowledging at the time “significant concerns” with its lack of an emergency room.

The Minnesota Psychiatric Society and other mental health experts have raised concerns that many patients will be transferred from other in-network hospitals, allowing for-profit Acadia to effectively cherry pick the wealthiest patients, leaving poorer, uninsured and harder-to-treat crisis cases to emergency rooms at outside hospitals.

Notably absent from the beam signing on Wednesday were officials from the governor’s office, the Ramsey County Board and Ramsey County Social Services, the St. Paul mayor’s office and the St. Paul City Council, as well as the National Alliance on Mental Illness and other vocal advocates for the mentally ill.

Reached shortly after the gathering, Ramsey County Board Chair Trista Martinson, St. Paul City Council Member Rebecca Noecker and Sue Abderholden, executive director of NAMI Minnesota, said they were unaware of the event and had not received invitations.

“We opposed this from the beginning,” said Abderholden, in a brief interview. “It’s a psychiatric-only hospital, as opposed to a psych-unit within a regular hospital, such as Region’s or Hennepin County Medical Center. They won’t have an emergency room, so they get to choose who they take into their hospital. They call it an ‘institute for mental disease,’ or an IMD, which means you can’t use Medicaid.”

“Because people with the most serious mental illnesses are on Medicaid, (surrounding) hospitals are going to serve people with higher needs, and they’re going to get a higher percentage of the Medicaid patients, which doesn’t pay as much,” Abderholden added. “Somebody who is homeless and has gangrene in their feet — are they going to take that person in their psych-only hospital? I don’t think so.”

Fairview and Acadia officials on Wednesday said there will be some primary care doctors located on site, offering what Woods called “care for the whole person, mind, body and spirit.”

‘Not here to serve our community’

Martinson said she had once approached the Acadia-Fairview joint venture with an open mind, but walked away from initial meetings a few years ago frustrated.

“It might be located in St. Paul, but it became pretty clear it is only for their clients,” Martinson said. “It was very clear to me from the beginning, despite our outreach and us trying to touch base with them, they were not here to serve our community. It was a for-profit entity that bought a building.”

Also among the Department of Health’s stated concerns in 2022, the state found that the new facility will operate under a “leaner staffing model than is the norm nationally and in Minnesota.” The state review noted the 144 new beds would partially — but not fully — offset mental health beds lost when Fairview gradually shuttered St. Joseph’s Hospital in downtown St Paul from 2020 to 2022.

And while the increased patient load from the closure of St. Joe’s had been absorbed by surrounding downtown hospitals, the state found “it is placing a strain on emergency rooms and inpatient mental health units.”

Fairview officials on Wednesday noted that some of their services had actually expanded in downtown St. Paul. St. Joe’s has since been converted into the Fairview Community Health and Wellness Hub. Bethesda Hospital, which had for many years offered 15 long-term acute care rehabilitation beds for the severely disabled, was demolished in 2023, but a new long-term acute care unit opened at the downtown Wellness Hub with 24 beds.

With an eye toward the economics of maintaining hospital systems, the state of Minnesota maintains a moratorium on adding new hospital beds without state approval.

Woods, in his remarks, acknowledged that getting state legislative approval for the Capitol Park Mental Health Hospital had been an extensive process.

Ultimately, however, “the Legislature, in their wisdom, waived the moratorium,” he said.

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