Wood City Classic Back at the Middle School

Dec 28

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

Back in the Early 1970’s when Cloquet boys basketball head coach Orin Schuler started the Wood City Classic Basketball tournament over the Holiday Break, it was played at the Cloquet Middle School in the Classic old style gymnasium. The Early Years featured great and outstanding players such as Kevin McHale from Hibbing, Jerry Ujdur from Hermantown, and John Retica from Virginia all very well known players who all went on to famous college and or professional careers.

From the famous beginnings to now, the well know athletes, and more, the 2010 Wood City Classic is again making news because the tournament will be held back at its origins, the Cloquet Middle School. With work being done to the varsity gym floor, Cloquet High School is allowing the tournament to move back to its beginnings and both players and coaches are excited about the move.

“This is something that I have thought about since I played basketball there,” Head Boys Basketball Coach Steve Battaglia told Northland Sports Online. “To go back there and play where I grew up playing is just an awesome feeling.” Battaglia added “The memories and the nostalgia are something we will never forget, and we hope to continue to do this from now on with the tournament.”

The Tournament begins Tuesday with four boys and girls teams battling beginning at 1:00 pm. The opening game of the day features a girl’s matchup between Ashland and Blake, followed by a boy’s matchup of undefeated Esko taking on Blake. The 5:00 pm game sees the Lady Lumberjacks facing East Central, and in the nightcap it will be Cloquet against the East Central boys.

One bonus highlight of the Cloquet girls game is Annabel Morrisroe is a mere six points shy of becoming the sixth girl in the history of the program to hit 1000 points.

The pairings for Wednesday feature Ashland against East Central at 1pm, at 3pm a boys battle between Esko and East Central, at 5pm a girls game with Blake and Cloquet meeting and the final game of the 2010 tournament will be the boys taking on Blake. Both the boys and girls teams went 1-1 in the tournament last season.

So from the early beginnings of Coach Schuler, to Jerry Erickson, Dale Johnson, Dean Leviniski, Tom Brenner, and other Cloquet coaches throughout the years, current head boys coach Steve Battaglia summed it up the best when he simply said, “It’s nice to be going home again.”

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com