Dukes hope to perform up to high hopes in Northern’s 2nd half
Nice night, good crowd, and the hamburgers and bratwursts were sending clouds of enticing aromas. It was Wednesday night, and the ideal setting for the Duluth-Superior Dukes to demonstrate the caliber of their attractiveness inside the colorful and historic walls of Wade Municipal Stadium.
Thud! You could almost feel the weight of such a concept falling out of the blue sky and landing in a heap somewhere near the pitching mound in a 20-7 blowout loss to the Sioux Falls Canaries. The significance was mainly the end of the first half of the Northern League’s two-half schedule. The Dukes finished second, solidly, with a 21-24 record behind high-flying Winnipeg in the North Division standings.
Sioux Falls and Fargo-Moorhead had a great race for the South Division halftime pennant, with Sioux Falls breaking a tie for first by thrashing the Dukes.
All of that made the perfect setting for Dukes manager Ed Nottle to assess his team’s first-half performance, and set his sights for the second half, which starts this weekend, in Sioux City.
“I like the way our team is playing, and I’m having fun managing them,” Nottle said. “We started the year off with the objective of trying to get better as the first half went on. I think we did that. Toward the end of the first half, we had nine rookies on the roster some of the time.
“We took a run at .500, and we just missed it,” added Nottle. “I’m not saying we’re going to catch Winnipeg in the second half, because I don’t know if any team can do that. But the way I look at it, it takes four teams for the playoffs. Sioux Falls and Fargo-Moorhead look like the two teams in the other division, and in our division, it’s Winnipeg and one other team. We can definitely be that other team. And if we make the playoffs, we’d go against Winnipeg, and in five games, we could win three.”
Optimistic, but not unreasonable. The Dukes played a very entertaining first half, while Nottle juggled personnel and altered the talent level and the personality of the club as the season progressed. In Wednesday night’s game to conclude the first half, the Dukes used five players who weren’t on the club to start the season — designated hitter J.P. Fauske, shortstop Mike Theoharis, catcher David Briceno, and pitchers Jeremy Book and Joe Maskivish. Pitcher Matt Kuziara is another player acquired as the season went along, and two or three others came in and departed.
In the process, Nottle improved the team defense, which has gone from shaky to solid, and improved the hitting. The attendance has been harder to improve than the roster, and the Dukes ended up averaging 1,191, a distant last in the league, which ranks: St. Paul 6,405, Winnipeg 6,296, Lincoln 5,353, Schaumburg 4,469, Fargo-Moorhead 3,954, Sioux Falls 2,831, Sioux City 2,636, and Duluth-Superior 1,191.
The disparity does not do justice to the apparent entertainment level exhibited by the fans. Indeed, had the Dukes been able to win their last two games of the first half, they would have ended up at even .500, although weather and other factors have been suggested as reasons for the weakest turnouts in the league. Wade Stadium’s seats and the hard-wire fencing that affords almost no unobstructed views of the field, have been ventured as areas that could be improved upon. But the old facility is celebrating its 60th birthday, and could be freshened up to enhance its character of a smaller Wrigley Field without intruding on its historical legacy.
Certainly, some free agent players may hesitate to come to the Dukes because of the potential for exactly the kind of chilly and wet start to the season that faced them this season.
“We don’t have a lot of money, and there are other things, but anything you might say sounds like a knock on the city, the ballpark or the weather,” said Nottle. “The fact is, if we’d won our last game, I guess we would have had the most wins of any Dukes team in the first half.
“You know, a game like that (Wednesday) can happen to anybody,” said Nottle. “Look at the night before, we got 20 hits but lost in the 10th inning. The trouble with getting so far behind and then scoring some runs is that we’ll probably only score seven runs twice a year.”
The Dukes trailed 2-0 through three innings Wednesday, but Paul Bartolucci, the No. 9 hitter in the Sioux Falls lineup, ripped a 2-out shot into left field to drive in a couple runs, and a walk and an infield single set up Mike Busch, who laced one into the left-field corner to empty the bases. Nottle changed pitchers, pulling the usually reliable Kris Kozlowski, but hardly stopping the outburst. Charles Peterson singled to make it 9-0, and Jermaine Swinton clouted a home run and it was 11-0. Eddie Rivera and Tagg Bozied followed with back-to-back doubles, and it was 12-0.
In the fifth, Brandon Pernell got bonked on the helmet with a pitch, and hot-hitting Eddie Gerald drilled 420-foot blast over the wall just to the left of center for the Dukes. But at 14-2, the Canaries struck for more, when a double and back-to-back home runs made it 15-2. It ended up 20-7.
“There’s an example of how things go,” said Nottle. “Eddie Rivero hit two home runs against us, and two days earlier I was dealing with him, but we couldn’t get it worked out.
“But our starting pitching has been good. I’m happy with our starters, I like our middle relief, and Eddie Gerald and Eddie Lantigua are starting to hit, while Aaron Runk and Greg Morrison have been hitting all along.
“I think that if we can get one more guy in the bullpen, and maybe one more solid hitter, we’ll be in good shape to make a run at the second half.”
And, on those nights when things don’t all work out…well, the hamburgers are outstanding.
Shanked ace shares peak with Wimbledon final, softball thriller
If you had the time to turn on your television set early Monday morning, and remembered that the rainfall in England had delayed the men’s singles final at Wimbledon until then, you witnessed one of the great sports events of the ages. Goran Ivanisevic, a tall, lanky Croatian who had entered as a wild-card because he was unseeded by the snooty types who rank tennis players, survived a long, arduous match of incredible momentum swings to defeat Patrick Rafter of Australia 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 and claim the trophy.
When it was over, and Rafter, who is my favorite tennis player to watch, just ahead of Andre Agassi, had hit another of Ivanisevic’s lightning serves into the net, Ivanisevic fell to the turf, sobbing. He quickly got up, hugged Rafter at the net in a memorable moment, then raced up into the stands to embrace his father. It was a magical moment, and it was by far the most significant sports event of a busy week.
The biggest moment of the regional sports scene was at the new Cloquet softball field, where the Esko Ice survived a splendid performance by the Minnesota Xplosion to win a girls under-18 fast-pitch softball game 1-0, when Lindsey Erickson beat out a leadoff, inside-the-park home run, and both teams then battled to threaten, but not score, the whole rest of the game.
Those were my two biggest moments in sports of the past week, although not necessarily my favorite sports moment of the week. I didn’t actually witness my favorite sports moment, but I was nearby.
I had been invited to play in the annual Duluth East Hockey Association fund-raising golf tournament. The group in charge is nicknamed DEHAA, which means that somehow, someone has added an extra letter to the acronym for “Duluth East Hockey Association.” Or maybe somebody just wanted the group to be one more than necessary. You know how East folks are.
Anyhow, I had the honor of playing with East coach Mike Randolph, his former junior varsity coach and now full-fledged assistant Terry Johnson, plus Terry’s brother, Steve, and Nick Patronas, who owns Mr. Nick’s hamburger shop downtown and is one of the most colorful businessmen and sports boosters around while still turning out a mean Char-cheeseburger.
The scramble tournament was played at Lester Park public course, a beautiful layout bordered by woods that still contain some of those incredible slices of my youthful golfing days. Actually, it’s a good thing river rafting and fishing weren’t as popular then as they are now, because I could have had some liability problems back then. I still recall my routine sequence of emotions coming off the 18th tee as a youthful golfer: First, the thrill of hitting a tremendous drive; next, a nervous twang as the ball reached its zenith and started to veer to the right; changing to concern that the right-turning ball would hit those beautiful birch trees and leave me a difficult lie; and finally despair, as the ball cleared the birch trees and became eminently visible as it hit the black asphalt of the Lester River Road and bounced 50 feet in the air for one last farewell before disappearing over the cliff on a trajectory toward the Lester River itself.
At least it saved us the time of looking for the ball.
We had no such problems this time. But we did have a steady rainstorm at high noon last Friday, although it stopped as we headed our carts out toward our assigned starting holes. Randolph, looking like he’d just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalog in his Levi’s and tennis shoes, didn’t bring clubs, balls, tees or shoes for a very good reason — he doesn’t own any. “Can I use your driver, Terry?” Mike would ask. “Sure,” Johnson would answer. “Got a ball?” was the next question. Then, “Got any tees?”
What are assistants for, anyway? Turns out, Mike Randolph is a pretty good golfer. He socks the ball better than most, and he lines up putts pretty well, although nowhere near as well as he’d have you believe. Nick hits the ball a ton, and he also set a record with an estimated 75 cell-phone calls during our 18 hole round. Most of it was serious business stuff, but one time, when he was looking over his lie off to the right side of the fairway, I heard him asking into his cell-phone: “How do you make the ball draw like you do?” The man was getting an actual golf lesson during the round.
Fortunately, Terry Johnson is an excellent golfer, and he kept reminding Randolph to find the cover for his putter, and we came in something like 9-under par.
But my favorite moment came from a different group. There was an actual six-some, with Dave Maertz, Dan Stromquist, John Hughes, Mike Kirsch, Rich Hill and Mark Heaslip playing together. As the clouds broke up and the sun came out, it got warm, then hot and steamy. Heaslip, a star winger back in the early 1970s who went on to become a hard-nosed captain at UMD, and eventually played for the New York Rangers, was back in town for the event, and he celebrated the heat by taking off his shirt, taking advantage of not being at a country club. Heaslip still is in great shape, so maybe he was just showing off his muscular frame, which would still look good going into the corners at the DECC in a UMD jersey.
The sixth hole, which is a par-3, 161-yard layout, had a hole-in-one trophy of a new Pontiac Grand Am, put up by Krenzen Indoor Auto Mall. Those things always are set up, and nobody ever wins them, and the car outfit insures itself against the possibility anyway, but it’s a great enticement.
“I was just about to tee off,” said Heaslip, “when the guys behind us came up toward the tee. One of their guys yelled, ‘It looks like a body-building show without the muscles.’ I was right in the middle of my backswing, and I laughed. When I swung, I hit the ball on the toe of my 9-iron.”
Whether disgruntled, or still laughing, Heaslip turned away. The rest, as they say, is history. The ball flew, bounced, and wound up in the hole. An ace. Worth a Grand Am.
“Everybody yelled,” Heaslip said. “I think I’m the only one who didn’t see it go in. But I think the whole thing distracted us, because we only finished 17 under.”
Distracted? A shanked 9-iron that goes 161 yards into the cup? Only 17-under? Their group won the top prize, and everyone had a good time celebrating. Rumor has it, the celebration is still going on, alternating nights at Dick Fisher’s home and cabin.
Erickson races to leadoff home run as Ice chills Xplosion 1-0
The Esko Ice started out six years ago as the reason the Lake Superior girls fast-pitch softball league existed, and their roster was made up of selected players from throughout the region. The Ice remains the league’s standard, and still stands undefeated, but only by the slimmest of margins, as of Thursday night.
The Ice survived their biggest challenge by slipping past the Minnesota Xplosion 1-0 before a well-entertained crowd that filled the bleachers at the new Cloquet softball complex, and saw fast-pitch softball at its best between two teams unbeaten in league play. That’s not unusual for the Ice, who haven’t lost a league game in six years and will again qualify for national tournament play, but the upstart Xplosion was 7-0 in league games until the Ice game.
Allison Paitich, from Forest Lake, pitched her way in and out of trouble for six innings for the Ice, giving up some solid hits to the fired-up Xplosion players, but escaping unscored upon, thanks to some sparkling defensive plays. Stephanie Fritch came on and pitched a 1-2-3 seventh to complete the shutout against the Xplosion, which consists of players from Cloquet, Hermantown and the Iron Range.
Lindsey Predovich, from Virginia, pitched a superb game against the Ice, despite only striking out one, and if it hadn’t been for leadoff hitter Lindsey Erickson, the game might still be going on. Erickson and Katie Kessler each had two hits for the Ice, who managed only five hits in the game, but it was the very first at-bat, by Erickson, that made the difference.
Erickson opened the last of the first, and Predovich zipped a fastball that seemed to be at supersonic speed. The Xplosion coaches shifted their fielders slightly, anticipating that the left-handed hitting Erickson might settle for a slap-hit to the left side. But Predovich came right back with a change-up, and Erickson ripped it, pulling a shot down the right field line.
The ball got by, rolling to the fence, and Erickson — Hermantown’s star state-tournament pitcher, and the regular pitcher for the Toons in league play, but the standout center-fielder for the Ice — sped around second and headed for third. She never stopped, as coach Gary Fritch sent her for home as the relay came in from the second baseman. Predovich cut it off and threw a second relay home, but Erickson beat the throw for an inside-the-park home run.
“She threw the first pitch to me outside,” said Erickson. “But then she threw a change-up, and I saw it.”
She also hit it — hard. “When I was going for home, I saw Predovich cut it off, and I made it without sliding,” said Erickson, who also singled in the fifth, but that time she advanced to second and third on wild pitches before being stranded there.
“At the time, I didn’t think the game would end up 1-0,” Erickson said.
Predovich, who had been keyed up all season to face the Ice, was perturbed after her Xplosion fell just short.
“She hit a change-up,” said Predovich. “I got it up, and when she hit it, I thought it was foul. I couldn’t believe it when she made it all the way around. But we made so many mistakes, we cost ourselves the chance to win it. I’m just angry right now. I don’t even want to think about softball for a week. My arm hurts; I had to ice it all through the game. I want a week off.”
The early run stood up when the Xplosion repeatedly failed to score on promising opportunities. In the top of the second, Amy Potvein socked a triple over the left-fielder’s head leading off. But when the next hitter smacked a sharp grounder to third, Meghan Norris fielded it cleanly and threw Potvein out at the plate.
In the top of the third, again the Xplosion got a runner to third, but she was stranded, and they also had hits in the fourth and fifth innings, and were hitting the ball solidly enough to drive the Ice outfielders deep. In the top of the sixth, after a single, Predovich doubled to right, but the runner was held at third even though the ball was still in the outfield, and both runners wound up stranded. The Xplosion got six hits in the game, and Ice outfielders mishandled a couple of other long balls for errors.
Coach Fritch, who alternates Paitich and his daughter, Stephanie Fritch, as pitchers, deployed Stephanie as a “closer” in the seventh and she induced three straight infield grounders to end the game.
It was just another league game in the record book, but it was a lot more than that as well, deserving a historical footnote to notify the Ice that they can look forward to at least one challenge as the league’s perennial top team.
Flat turns and lots of room bring out the best in CART racers
Every year, I try to find the way to be near a television set when the CART racing series goes to Cleveland. They race on the Lakefront Airport runways, and the designated race course turns out to be perhaps the best race track in the country, believe it or not.
If you’re a race fan, you are aware that NASCAR has made it big, running on oval tracks. CART made it big running on road-racing circuits, but also at the Indianapolis 500 on the biggest oval of them all. So when NASCAR’s popularity boomed, and CART had its split and rivalry with the IRL, the scrambling began. CART owners, such as Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi, bought and/or built their own race tracks. The rush was to build more high-banked ovals, obviously in hopes of attracting a NASCAR race at one time in the season and a CART (or IRL) at another point. Can’t miss, right?
Only problem is, those high-banked ovals are not only conducive to high speeds from stock cars, but to exorbitantly high speeds from Indy or Champ cars, which are lighter and have more power. The huge, lumbering stock cars need the high banking to press them down onto the track surface, so they can maintain high speeds through the turns. On the same turns, CART racers, which stick pretty well on flat corners, stick so well that they pull dangerously high g-forces while also allowing almost unlimited speed.
Alex Zanardi confided to me three years ago that in the quest to make racing safe, which is high priority on everyone’s mind, that the cars are as safe as they can be, and the drivers are as skilled as they can be. But because the tracks themselves, in their quest to be the biggest and fastest of all, have become unsafe for their speed capabilities, racing is more dangerous than ever. Then, Zanardi said, race organizations find ways to inhibit the speed of the cars, which means drivers find them performing and handling differently, and somewhat below their capability.
So, while the cars are the safest and the drivers the best, the fact that the tracks are inherently unsafe causes the cars to be altered, which means the drivers can’t push them to their maximum. In other words, the drivers can’t use maximum skill on cars that won’t perform to their maximum, to compensate for tracks that are basically unsafe.
At any rate, back to Cleveland. The turns are put in, but many of them are extremely wide, so drivers can pick their lines, gain positions, but might find that their rival has chosen a different line and can come out of the turn so fast he can regain the position. It all makes for wildly exciting racing, my favorite every year.
The Cleveland stop on the CART schedule was last Sunday. If you watched it, you saw what I mean. It was the ultimate test. If you didn’t watch it, what happened was that different drivers had their chances at the lead, with Max Wilson holding the early edge, then Memo Gidley taking over in a Ganassi-Target racer. Gidley was clearly the fastest, but pit exchanges came into play.
From the back of the field came Dario Franchitti, who started 14th, and Alex Zanardi, making his best showing since returning from Formula 1 to CART this season, and Gidley. Zanardi, who used to drive with abandon, was conservative to the point of being cautious, but he moved up to take second, only to have an over-aggressive Wilson drive into his left rear tire with his right front wing. That knocked Wilson out with four laps to go — 96 of 100 — but it also cut Zanardi’s tire, forcing a slow lap and pit stop, and dooming him to 13th place, same as where he started.
Gidley, driving in only his second race for Ganassi, had the race in hand, leading and dominating from laps 70-90, but he had to make a late pit stop on lap 91 for a brief splash of fuel to make the finish. That allowed Franchitti to take the lead, but Gidley came out and chased him, gaining ground steadily under full power, while Franchitti’s crew kept insisting he had to back off to conserve fuel to make the distance.
Behind Franchitti was Michael Andretti, his teammate, but he was a lap down. Andretti clearly balked Gidley at one point, causing him to get off the power and drop precious seconds, but then Andretti pulled over to let Gidley by, and the pursuit resumed. He got closer and closer, and Franchitti went harder and harder, and his Reynard-Honda made it to the finish line where the glare of his out-of-fuel light must have made the checkered flag look all the prettier, while Gidley, who undoubtedly could have passed for the lead with one more lap, or even two more turns, came in 3/10 of a second behind.
A great race, because great drivers had a lot of room to choose their lines through every turn instead of having to follow the dictated line around and around and around.
In the political arena, the IRL continues to stress that it wants to run all ovals, just like NASCAR, and to separate itself from CART. So the IRL continues to pounce on contracts at the high-speed ovals that CART is withdrawing from. Last Saturday, the IRL raced on a 3/8-mile oval at Richmond, Va. Not coincidentally, for the second race in a row, an IRL event came down to a three-car finish, but two of the three crashed near the finish. Hopefully the political battle won’t lead to physical harm.
The ovals should be left to NASCAR, where the stocks thrive. And this week, of course, the focus is on NASCAR’s return to Daytona, for the first time since this spring’s tragic last-lap crash that claimed Dale Earnhardt’s life. We can only hope that all the fireworks happen at Fourth of July ceremonies, and not on the race tracks.
Esko Ice wins Classic
The Esko Ice and the Northern Wisconsin Heat followed distinctly different select-team concepts into the Lake Superior Classic fast-pitch softball tournament, where the Ice repeated as champion in the 18-and-under final and the Heat came back from a rocky start to the weekend to capture the B-category title.
The Under-16 division champion was Forest Lake Gold, while The Max, from Orono, won the 16B trophy.
Players from various teams in the Twin Ports and as far away as Forest Lake make up the Esko Ice, the top team in the region, if not the state, which plays a regular schedule in Duluth’s top girls fast-pitch league as well as in tournaments all over the Upper Midwest nearly every weekend, with a concerted focus on reaching the national tournament.
In stark contrast, Ron Vanderploeg of Cable, Wis., put the Northern Wisconsin Heat team together with players from Ashland, Cable, Grantsburg, Rice Lake, Bloomer, and Eau Claire, many of whom don’t play on regular teams or in regular leagues, let alone on traveling teams. They finished with 4-1 records in tournaments both at St. Paul and Eagan, but that was the extent of their whole season until last weekend when they came to Duluth. Understandably, they were rusty at the start of the tournament, and they lost 4-0 to Fridley and 2-1 to Aurora.
However, the Heat came back Saturday night to stun the Minnesota Xplosion — the team second only to the Ice in the Twin Ports league. Leah Vanderploeg matched Xplosion pitcher Brooke Tondryk through seven scoreless innings, and the Heat won 4-3 in nine innings under international rules, with a runner starting on second base in extra innings. The magnitude of the Heat victory was best described by the fact that the Xplosion earlier had pounded the two teams that had beaten the Heat, ripping Aurora 12-0 and Fridley 8-1.
After Saturday’s pool play, the teams were split with the top two teams in each pool going into the A group and the others into the B group. The Northern Wisconsin Heat, with two losses, was relegated to the B group Sunday, but made the most of it, ripping Cooper-Armstrong 16-4, slipping past the Superior Toons 4-3, then beating the Slam 9-0 in the B semifinals, and knocking off Fridley 6-1 in the final — sweet revenge for the opening loss to Fridley.
Along with Vandenploeg, from Cable, the Heat has three players from Ashland — outfielder Lindsey Schultz, and infielders Amber Berg and Karen Harnisch, who will be only a sophomore this fall at Ashland High School.
The Esko Ice, which came into the weekend’s games at Wheeler, Wade and Proctor fields with a perfect 34-0 record in tournament history, was rarely challenged while running past four foes in Saturday’s pool play, blitzing Cambridge-Isanti 9-0, Edina 14-2, Bemidji 15-0 and the Central Slam 8-0, for a combined run difference of 42-2. The Ice romped to a 10-0 victory over North Area in Sunday’s quarterfinals before holding off Stillwater 3-2 in the semifinals. The Ice beat the Minnesota Diamonds, based in White Bear Lake, 4-1 in Sunday’s tournament finale. That gives the Ice a perfect 41-0 record in the history of biggest the Twin Ports fast-pitch tournament.
In the championship game, Lindsey Erickson singled in the first, and Kristen Kunz beat out her attempted sacrifice bunt. That brought up Michelle Jakubek, who drove home both runners for a 2-0 lead. It was 4-0 before the Diamonds got a run off pitcher Allison Paitich, who also pitched the 10-0 shutout over North Area. Stephanie Fritch hurled the 3-2 victory over Stillwater.
Stillwater came back to beat Virginia pitcher Lindsey Predovich and the Minnesota Xplosion 1-0 in the third-place game. The Xplosion, with Cloquet’s Brooke Tondryk alternating with Predovich throughout the tournament, had lost a 4-1 game to the Diamonds in the semifinals, when, after the teams had battled 0-0 through seven innings, the Diamonds won 4-1 in the international rule extra inning.
The Diamonds also had gone to international rules to beat Edina 3-1 in eight innings, again after the teams were scoreless through seven.
The tournament started on shaky ground, literally, as the teams arrived for the 8 a.m. scheduled opening games on Wheeler’s multiple fields, but found them unlined and with crews just starting to work on them. That, and the fact that there were no programs or lineup sheets to allow consistently good crowds to identify any of the players, were the only blemishes on the most prestigious softball tournament in the Twin Ports, for which everything else from the weather to concession food at Wheeler was exceptional.
In the age-16 category, Forest Lake Gold and the St. Paul Knight Hawks, combining players from East Side rivals Johnson and Harding, were playing their fourth games when Forest Lake won 1-0 in the A group championship game. Earlier, Forest Lake beat Oakdale 5-2 and the Knight Hawks stopped the Esko Blizzard 10-0. In the quarterfinals, the Knight Hawks eliminated the Duluth Aerials 10-3, after trailing 3-0, while Forest Lake beat Irondale 4-2. Forest Lake beat Farmington 2-1 and the Knight Hawks beat Cambridge 4-0 in the semifinals.
The B group for 16-year-olds was won by The Max in a 5-0 game against the Cloquet Blast. The Max reached the final by thrashing St. Paul 14-0, then stopping Silver Bay 3-0 and the Proctor-Duluth Pink Panthers 4-1. The Blast had won 12-4 against the Duluth Central Crush, then slipped past Bemidji 1-0 before beating Faribault 10-0 in the semifinals.
In all, there were 46 teams that played in the two divisions
TOURNAMENT SCORES
Under 18
18A Division
Quarterfinals
Esko Ice 10, North Area 0
Stillwater Red 7, Aurora 0
Minnesota Diamonds 3, Edina 1 (eight innings)
Minnesota Xplosion 6, Minnesota North Stars 1
Semifinals
Esko Ice 3, Stillwater 2
Minnesota Diamonds 4, Minnesota Xplosion 1 (8 innings)
Championship
Esko Ice 4, Minnesota Diamonds 1
Third Place
Stillwater 1, Minnesota Xplosion 0
18B Division
First round
Cambridge-Isanti 4, Wild Things 3
Northern Wisconsin Heat 16, Cooper-Armstrong 4
Quarterfinals
Fridley 5, Grand Rapids 2
Bemidji 2, Cambridge-Isanti 1
Northern Wisconsin Heat 4, Duluth-Superior Toons 3
Duluth Central Slam 9, Faribault 0
Semifinals
Fridley 8, Bemidji 0
Northern Wisconsin Heat 9, Duluth Central Slam 0
Championship
Northern Wisconsin Heat 6, Fridley 1
Third Place
Duluth Central Slam 11, Bemidji 0
Under 16
16A Division
First round (single elimination)
St. Paul Knight Hawks Gold 10, Esko Blizzard 0
Cambridge-Isanti 9, Superior Fillies 1
Stillwater Red 4, Stillwater Black 1
Irondale 3, Eveleth-Gilbert 2
Forest Lake Gold 5, Oakdale 2
Forest Lake Maroon 3, North Area 2
Quarterfinals
St. Paul Knight Hawks 10, Duluth Aerials 3
Cambridge-Isanti 3, Stillwater Red 1
Forest Lake Gold 4, Irondale 2
Farmington 6, Forest Lake Maroon 2
Semifinals
St. Paul Knight Hawks Gold 4, Cambridge-Isanti 0
Forest Lake Gold 2, Farmington 1
Championship
Forest Lake Gold 1, St. Paul Knight Hawks Gold 0
Third Place
Farmington 6, Cambridge 0
16B Division
First round (single elimination)
The Max (Orono) 14, St. Paul Knight Hawks Maroon 0
Proctor-Duluth Pink Panthers 10, Denfeld Lightning 1
Hermantown Lightning 6, Proctor Stars 0
Cloquet Blast 12, Duluth Central Crush 4
Bemidji 14, Superior Ponies 0
Faribault 14, Duluth East Eclipse 0
Quarterfinals
The Max 3, Silver Bay 0
Proctor-Duluth Pink Panthers 3, Hermantown Lightning 1
Cloquet Blast 1, Bemidji 0
Faribault 15, Wade Bowl Baby Hawks 1
Semifinals
The Max 4, Proctor-Duluth Pink Panthers 1
Cloquet Blast 10, Faribault 0
Championship
The Max (Orono) 4, Cloquet Blast 0
Third Place
Proctor-Duluth Pink Panthers 4, Faribault 1
All-Tournament Team
U18
Allison Paitich – Esko Ice
Meghan Norris – Esko Ice
Lindsey Erickson – Esko Ice
Bri Duff – Minnesota Diamonds
Ingrid Olson – Minnesota Diamonds
Nicole Kraemer – Stillwater
Leah Vanderploeg – Northern Wisconsin Heat
Erin Jensen – Northern Wisconsin Heat
Melissa Keeler – Fridley
Lindsey Lundeen – Duluth Central Slam
U16
Cortney Marr – Forest Lake Gold
Jamie Falck – Forest Lake Gold
Stacey Pream – Forest Lake Gold
Casey Hart – St. Paul Knight Hawks Gold
Katie Haider – St. Paul Knight Hawks Gold
Andrea LaFavor – The Max
Sarah Tondryk – Cloquet Blast
Joann Juten – Duluth Aerials
Pool Play Results
Saturday
Under 18
Duluth-Superior Toons 6, Wild Things 0
Minnesota Xplosion 12, Aurora 0
Esko Ice 8, Duluth Central Slam 0
Minnesota Diamonds 7, Duluth-Superior Toons 1
Edina 7, Cambridge-Isanti 5
Esko Ice 15, Bemidji 0
North Area 2, Faribault 0
Minnesota North Stars 7, Grand Rapids 0
Fridley 4, Northern Wisconsin Heat 0
Duluth Central Slam 2, Cambridge Isanti 0
Minnesota North Stars 9, Cooper-Armstrong Sliders 4
Stillwater Red 5, Grand Rapids 4
Minnesota Diamonds 6, Faribault 0
North Area 4, Wild Things 3
Edina 7, Bemidji 1
Minnesota Xplosion 8, Fridley 1
Bemidji 8, Duluth Central Slam 5
Aurora 2, Northern Wisconsin Heat 1
Grand Rapids 2, Cooper-Armstrong Sliders 0
Minnesota Diamonds 10, Wild Things 0
Duluth-Superior Toons 6, Faribault 5
Aurora 6, Fridley 5
Esko Ice 14, Edina 2
Stillwater Red 7, Cooper-Armstrong Sliders 0
Esko Ice 9, Cambridge-Isanti 0
Northern Wisconsin Heat 4, Minnesota Xplosion 3 (9 innings)
North Area 6, Duluth-Superior Toons 3
Stillwater Red 7, Minnesota North Stars 1
Under 16
Duluth Aerials 4, Silver Bay 0
Wade Bowl Baby Hawks 3, Esko Blizzard 0
Superior Fillies 8, Denfeld Lightning 2
Proctor-Duluth Pink Panthers 11, Superior Ponies 10
Proctor Stars 15, Duluth Central Crush 1
The Max 12, Duluth East Eclipse 0
Cambridge-Isanti 5, Oakdale Toros 3
Cloquet Blast 6, Hermantown Lightning 0
Forest Lake Maroon 8, Faribault 0
Stillwater Red 12, Duluth Central Crush 0
Farmington 12, St. Paul Knight Hawks Maroon 0
St. Paul Knight Hawks Gold 3, North Area 2
Eveleth-Gilbert 9, Proctor Stars 1
Forest Lake Gold 3, Bemidji 0
Irondale 2, Stillwater Black 1
Oakdale Toros 9, Superior Ponies 1
Cambridge-Isanti 8, Proctor-Duluth Panthers 4
Forest Lake Gold 8, Denfeld Lightning 0
Duluth Aerials 9, Faribault 1
Forest Lake Maroon 6, Silver Bay 1
Eveleth-Gilbert 12, Duluth Central Crush 0
Farmington 13, Esko Blizzard 0
St. Paul Knight Hawks Maroon 8, Wade Bowl Baby Hawks 5
Stillwater Black 8, Cloquet Blast 0
Superior Fillies 6, Bemidji 0
Irondale 9, Hermantown Lightning 1
Cambridge-Isanti 14, Superior Ponies 0
Esko Blizzard 11, St. Paul Knight Hawks Maroon
St. Paul Knight Hawks Gold 17, Duluth East Eclipse 0
Duluth Aerials 5, Forest Lake Maroon 2
Oakdale Toros 5, Proctor-Duluth Panthers 0
Bemidji 11, Denfeld Lightning 9
Stillwater Red 9, Eveleth-Gilbert 0
North Area 6, The Max 3
Farmington 14, Wade Bowl Baby Hawks 0
Stillwater Black 8, Hermantown Lightning 0
Forest Lake Gold 17, Superior Filles 0
Irondale 5, Cloquet Blast 1
Stillwater Red 9, Proctor Stars 0
Silver Bay 3, Faribault 2
St. Paul Knight Hawks Gold 3, The Max 0
North Area 4, Duluth East Eclipse 1
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
For those who want to keep up with John Gilbert's view of sports, mainly hockey with a Minnesota slant, click on the following:
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