Bayside Chatter: Softball race heats up

Talk about it

The softball statewide rankings have Hermantown at No. 3 in AA and Cherry-Cotton at No. 2 in Class A, Barnum at six, Silver Bay at nine and Nashwauk-Keewatin receiving votes. Locally the top five small schools were Cherry-Cotton, Barnum, Virginia, Silver Bay and Nashwauk-Keewatin. The conference race is pretty simple. If Barnum defeats Silver Bay, the title was theirs. If the Mariners prevailed and beat Carlton this afternoon, the title is theirs. The north half of Section 7A has Cherry unbeaten and Mesabi East and Nashwauk-Keewatin with one loss. The south half has Hill City unbeaten in five games and the Mariners with one loss in four games with two more to go. AlBrook and Floodwood each have two losses.

Baseball

The May 6 statewide baseball rankings had Grand Rapids at No. 17 in AAA and Cloquet at No. 14 in AA. In Class A it was Ely at 13, AlBrook at 16, Northland at 20 and Deer River at 21. The local small school rankings have the top five as Ely, Moose Lake, Esko, Chisholm and International Falls. The battle for the Polar League title has Esko, Floodwood, Moose Lake and Two Harbors all sitting with two losses. Ely and Deer River are unbeaten versus northern opponents in Section 7A and in the south half you have AlBrook and Floodwood unbeaten.

Upcoming games

This afternoon both the Mariner baseball and softball teams host the Carlton Bulldogs. Monday the softball team will host their county rivals the Two Harbors Agates. On Wednesday the softball team will be at Wheeler Fields in Duluth to play Duluth Marshall. The track team will be at Two Harbors on Wednesday for the Polar League Conference Meet.

Junior hockey

There is some preliminary talk going on about getting a junior hockey team once again in Duluth. It would be an entrant in the Superior International Hockey League and would probably come in with another team in Spooner.

Big crowd

The ticket sales for the Dec. 11 hockey game between Michigan and Michigan State at Michigan’s football stadium were recently cut off at 100,000 in order to save some for the students. This game’s attendance would then set a new world record for a hockey game. The old record was set earlier this month in Germany at a soccer stadium when 77,803 spectators saw Germany beat the USA 2-1 in overtime in a first round game of the World Tournament. Since then the USA fell 2-1 in overtime to Denmark and are now in a must-win situation in their last pool game versus Finland. If they win they will advance, but if they don’t, they will be dropped to the relegation pool.

College poll

Inside College Hockey have the top five teams for the 2010-11 season as North Dakota, Boston College, Miami, St. Cloud and Michigan with UMD at eight.

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