Cloquet shines in Wood City tourney

The 2024 version of the Wood City Classic boys basketball tournament was held last Friday and Saturday at Cloquet Middle School, and the venerable tournament did not disappoint local basketball fans.

"It is always a good tournament and we love coming to play here," said Cromwell-Wright coach Bill Pocernich. "There's always good competition against good teams."

The host Lumberjacks took on Pocernich's Cardinals in the opening game for both teams. Cloquet came out on top 82-48.

"We started well and we kind of got in the driver's seat right away," said Cloquet coach Steve Battaglia. "We are always worried when we play Cromwell because Bill (Pocernich) is a great coach. They were undefeated coming into the tournament, but we have an older, physical team this season. Everyone can score, and it showed."

That includes his son, Jack Battaglia, who led Cloquet with 27 points. Jacob Nelson added 13 and Noah Hansen finished with 12 to lead Cloquet in scoring in the game.

"Cloquet is a real good 3A team and we competed well early, but just couldn't make shots, and a lot of that had to do with their defense," Pocernich said.

Rounding out the scoring for Cloquet were Evan Rothamel and Max Sundquist with 8 points each. Grant Biebl added 6, Max Jazdewski 5, and Cloquet point guard James Wilmot scored 3 points.

Drew Nyberg and Laine Gervais led the Cards in scoring with 16 and 12 points, respectively. Brady Dahl scored 8, Carson Hill 7, Dylan Nyberg 3 and Jack Irving had 2 points.

Round 2

In the second round, the Lumberjacks mauled Pine City 81-58 in the championship, with Jack Battaglia again leading the charge with 28 points. Nelson also had a big night with 19, and Biebl came off the bench to score 14 points.

"We got off to a slow start and only led the game by 3 points at halftime," coach Battaglia said. "In all honesty, in that first half we played about as bad as we can play, but in the second half we put up 56 points and just took off on offense."

Joining Cloquet's scoring parade were Hansen with 9 points and Carson Hayes with 3 points. Rothamel, Wilmot, Daylen Wilson and Max Sundquist each scored 2 points.

Cromwell-Wright got back into the win column Saturday when it rolled past Mesabi East 65-44. Brady Dahl took charge in the paint with 24 points while Drew Nyberg and Dylan Nyberg scored 15 and 10 points, respectively.

"We didn't shoot the ball well the whole tournament, but against Mesabi East we were able to get a lot of transition points off of our defense," Pocernich said. "Mesabi East had a lot of size with a 6-foot-6 and a 6-foot-5 kid and we are small, so it took us a while. Once we started getting turnovers, we were able to get out and run and score easy baskets."

Adding to the Cards' point total were Tucker Korpela with 6 points, Laine Gervais with 4, and JJ Skalko-Olesiak and Brenden Gronner each with 3 points.

"We got off to a good start this season and were 4-0 in the conference," Pocernich said. "We rebounded the ball well against a tall Mesabi East team. The tournament was a good chance to get a look at some things we need to work on."