Lumberjacks ousted from section playoffs

The Cloquet Lumberjacks baseball team bowed out of the Section 7AAA tournament on Saturday with a 4-2 loss to the Chisago Lakes Wildcats in a game played in Cloquet. Prior to the loss the Lumberjacks downed Hibbing 6-5 on Thursday in a second-round game also played at Ed Mettner Field in Cloquet.

Against Hibbing the Lumberjacks found themselves trailing 2-0 after one inning, but then responded with two runs in the second and three in the third inning to go up 5-3 after three innings only to have the Blue Jackets fight back to tie the game with a pair of runs of their own in the fourth inning.

Cloquet finally sealed the win with a run in the bottom of the sixth inning and then shut down the Blue Jackets in the top of the seventh to gain the victory.

Cade Anderson hit a home run for the 'Jacks and had a 3-for-3 day at the plate while Jake Hunt, Nick Baker, Zach Tyman and Jack Sorenson all finished with a pair of hits for the Lumberjacks.

Gavin Rassmussen picked up the pitching win for Cloquet throwing a couple of shutout innings coming into the game in relief of Nick Baker who is normally Cloquet's catcher.

"Nick threw well, but it is tough when you take him from behind the plate because he's the best catcher in the area," Cloquet coach Rick Norrgard said. "You lose him from behind the plate and then you lose Jake Huhta off of second because he goes behind the plate, so you are moving a lot of pieces around and that is a tough thing to do."

In Saturday's game against Chisago Lakes it didn't take long for the Wildcats to grab an early lead as No. 2 hitter Logan Bjorkman launched a solo home run with one out in the first inning; however the Lumberjacks evened the score in the second inning when Cade Anderson reached on an error by the left fielder, went to second on a walk to Jack Sorenson and then scored on a two-out base hit by Gavin Rassmussen.

Chisago Lakes added single tallies in both the third and fourth innings by Bjorkman and Jacob Vangstad to go ahead 3-1. Again Cloquet rallied back, to 3-2 in the fifth inning when Jake Huhta reached on an error and eventually came in on a bases-loaded walk. Unfortunately for the Lumberjacks they left the bases loaded and it proved costly.

"We had our chances, but left too many guys on base," said coach Norrgard. "We had runners on in almost every inning, but could not get that timely hit to drive in the tying run."

After escaping a scary fifth inning by giving up only one run, the Wildcats helped themselves in the sixth inning when Bjorkman scored his third run of the game. Bjorkman had a two-out triple and then came home on an infield error.

"For the most part both teams played well on defense," Norrgard said. "We had the table set with runners most of the game, but that big two-out hit never came for us."

Rassmussen, Nick Baker and Zach Tyman all had two hits for Cloquet while Bjorkman had three hits for Chisago Lakes.

The loss eliminated Cloquet from the sectional because of an opening round loss to Hermantown, 11-4.

It was a tough end to the season for the Lumberjacks who have four seniors on the roster and lost star pitcher Jon Baker to an arm injury near the end of the regular season. The hard-throwing Baker was the cornerstone of the pitching staff and that injury was tough to overcome.

"He's arguably the best pitcher in the section and to lose him was tough," Norrgard said. "We felt the section was wide open and that we had a good chance to challenge for the section title. We knew we'd have big shoes to fill when Jon went down, but we will miss all of our seniors who are some really good kids."

The 'Jacks will lose the Baker twins, Jon and Nick, along with Gavin Rassmussen and Noah Niemi, all key cogs in the machinery of this year's squad.

"All of them are just quality people," Norrgard said. "They have been great for our program, but now some of the younger kids who got some solid playing time this year will need to step in to take on bigger roles for us."