A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Cloquet gets an out against Esko last week as Olivia Diver flips the ball to shortstop Kiana Bender. The Lumberjacks win over Esko on April 18 was the first game of the season.
Esko's Jenna Zdebski makes a play in the outfield last week at home against Cloquet.
Cloquet's Keegan Anderson beats out a throw against Esko last week.
The Cloquet girls softball team had to rely on their next-door neighbors, the Eskomos, to finally get a game outside. After recent snow and rain made their home field unusable, the Lumberjacks and Eskomos moved the Cloquet home game to Esko after a heroic effort by the Esko coaching staff and others to make their field playable last Thursday.
The Lumberjacks took the opening game with a win, 10-5, and then followed up with a 9-2 home win on Tuesday over Duluth East.
Against Esko, the 'Jacks scored a single tally in the first inning, and a pair of runs in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings before adding a tenth and final run in the sixth inning. Olivia Diver scored three runs and smacked out three hits in the win, and Lucy Sinkkonen pitched five strong innings, allowing just one hit.
"The Esko game was our first time on the dirt this year in practice or a game so it's nice to get going and start playing softball," said Cloquet coach Ron Tondryk. "We did well on the mound with Lucy getting the start and the win. It was nice for our hitters to get swings and Olivia (Diver) had a nice game for us."
Both Dana Jones and Kiana Bender added two hits in the game.
On Tuesday, the Lumberjacks finally got a home game at Braun Park and settled in after a slow start to beat Duluth East 9-2, punching out 14 hits in the victory.
"Our game against East didn't start off as good as we wanted it to," Tondryk said. "Our bats didn't get going until the middle of the game."
The game was scoreless through the first two innings until Cloquet scored on a Dana Jones bunt single followed by Jones stealing second and third and then scoring on a RBI groundout by Bender. Cloquet added two runs in the third on back-to-back singles from Keegan Anderson and Brenna McClarey, and an RBI groundout by Sinkkonen to make the score 3-0.
"Brenna McClarey was 3-for-3 and Jones was 2-for-3 and many others had a multiple-hit game for us," Tondryk said. "Lucy (Sinkkonen) also didn't get her stuff going until the middle of the game, but she settled down and found her rhythm as she also picked up five strikeouts."
Cloquet tacked on two more runs in the fifth inning when Jones led off with a triple and scored on a base hit by Shelby Peil. Peil stole second and advanced to third on a groundout to second by Bender, then scored on a base hit by Diver, pushing the lead to 5-0.
In the sixth inning, Cloquet put the game away with four more runs. McClarey, Josie Steen and Amanda Paul all singled with McClarey scoring on a sacrifice fly by Jones. Then Peil beat out an infield hit to reload the bases, which was followed by a double by Bender and an RBI groundout by Diver.
Sinkkonen pitched six innings to notch the win with Josie Steen pitching the seventh in relief.
