Maple Lake hosts Victoria on Friday, July 20, at 7:30 p.m. and Moorhead on Sunday, July 22, at 2 p.m. for Fan Appreciation Day to close out the regular season schedule. The big news is that the Lakers have earned the Number 1 seed going into the region playoffs. With the 20-game North Star League schedule completed on Sunday, July 15, here are the final rankings: Maple Lake 15-5, Howard Lake 15-5, Loretto 14-6, D-C Saints 14-6, Hutchinson 12-8, Maple Plain 11-9, Delano 10-10, Cokato Kings 7-13, Rockford 5-15, Buffalo 4-16, Mound 3-17. The top 8 teams will play in the region tournament, the other three will pack up their equipment. The top 7 automatically qualify. The bottom four teams will compete in single elimination games this weekend on Saturday and Sunday. The weekend winner (8 seed) will play Maple Lake on Thursday, July 26, in the first round of the double-elimination tournament. To see the complete region tournament schedule and to see the various tie-breakers used when two teams ended up with the same won-lost records, go to the league website: northstarleague.org All region tournament games will be played at Dassel Stadium.
Lakers 13, Buffalo 3 (7 innings)
It took the Lakers a long while to get started on a hot July 15 afternoon against Bulldog right-hander Randy Bethke, but by the sixth inning he was dragging. Trailing 3-1 at the start of the seventh, the Lakers went into high gear and put together a 12-run inning against Bethke and two relievers to finish the game under the 10-run rule. The Lakers picked up 10 hits and four walks in the big inning. The big blow was Chad Raiche’s bases-loaded, line-drive double to the left-center gap for the first three runs of the inning. The only other Laker run came in the fourth when Bert Marsnik singled and was safe at second on the pitcher’s overthrow of the bag that looked like a sure double play. Nate Johnson was safe on the fielder’s choice. An infield error loaded the bases for Derek Rachel’s base hit. Mitch Wurm went the seven innings for a complete game win. The tall right-hander limited the Bulldogs to six hits and a hit batter. He retired the last 12 Bulldogs in a row.
More information and stats appear in this week’s Messenger.
Be the first to comment