Cloquet Boys Are State Champs, Other Moving On Towards World Series

Wes Vork-NSO

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July 30

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

CLOQUET – The Cloquet 13 year old boys baseball team broke a 2-2 tie in the second inning scoring five times to take a 7-2 lead after two innings. They added four more runs in the fourth inning as they went on to defeat Central by a final score of 11-6 to capture the Minnesota State Little League 13 year old title.

Cloquet, which was hosting the state tournament for the first time, held tournaments in five different age divisions over the past four days at Braun Park and Mettner Field. The Cloquet 13 year old team finished the tournament undefeated, going 3-0 overall and also finished the season with an undefeated 11-0 playoff record.

Central, which had lost to Cloquet in the semi-finals, had defeated Esko for a second chance at Cloquet. Cloquet which lead 11-2 withstood a Central challenge when they scored four runs in the seventh inning, but it wasn’t enough as Cloquet went on to win the state title by five runs at Braun Park Saturday afternoon.

Head Coach Rick Norrgard told Northland Sports Online that no one thing in particular was responsible for the remarkable run; they are a great group of kids who are good athletes that play hard together.” Coach Norrgard also reflected on the season stating “we had a fun time,” which had to be extra special to win the state title at home.

The 2011 Cloquet 13 year old roster includes Austin Parenteau, Luke Tollerud, Mickey Smith, Adam Kangas, Alec Norrgard, Joe Gotchnick, Gabe Sorenson, Rob Sobczak, Kody Bender, Jeremy Bushey, Jeb Leone, and Trent Anderson. The Cloquet 13 year old were coached by Rick Norrgard, Brett Sorenson, and Dennis Rule.

In other state tournament action the Esko 13yr olds lost in the third place game to Eastern by a score of 17-10.
Congrats go out to the Hermantown boys, who beat Itasca 9-6 in the 11-12 yr old third place game.
Though they played a tough game, the Hermantown 110-11
year olds lost in the third place game by a score of 4-1.

Overall State
Champion winners were
Coon Rapids in the 9-10
yr olds, Plymouth/New
Hope in the
10-11’s, Centennial Lakes in the 11-12 division,
Cloquet boys in the 13yr olds and Lake Park in the 14 yr old division.

Centennial Lakes and Lake Park will advance towards the Little League World Series with Centennial Lakes going to the Indianapolis regionals and Lake Park making the trip to Fort Wayne Indiana.

Northland Sports Online would like to congratulate the players, coaches and parents of the 2011 Minnesota State Little League State Championship TeamS!

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com