Hawks Blank Cloquet To Remain Perfect At 10-0

Wes Vork-NSO

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May 3, 2012

Dwight Cadwell-NSO

Kevin Stocke of the Hermantown Hawks pitched a five inning two hit shutout as the Hawks defeated the Cloquet Lumberjacks by a score of 10-0 Thursday afternoon at Hermantown. With the shutout win, the Hawks continue to their fast start this season with their 10 straight win to remain undefeated.

The Hawks took advantage of a four run first inning and added runs in the second inning, the fourth inning, and then added three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning as the Hawks 10 run and shut out Cloquet. The Hawks fast start Thursday was attributed to good pitching, timely hitting, and help from some Cloquet defensive some wows. In all the game took only an hour and ten minutes to complete.

The Hawks scored four runs in the bottom of the first inning as they had four hits, a walk and an error by the Lumberjacks. Hermantown added two more runs in the second inning aided by three hits and another Cloquet error. Jared Thomas and Kevin Folman each picked up their second hit of the game in as many innings.

Hermantown added one more run in the bottom of the fourth inning to make it a 7-0 lead. The Hawks then ended it in the bottom of the fifth inning with three more runs.

The game finished up when after Neil Pionk drew a walk and Thomas was walked intentionally to load the bases, Folman had his third hit of the game to drive in the 10th run and end the game for Hermantown.

Cloquet managed only two hits on the game Kaleb Kadelbach and Trent Moe had singles in the top of the fifth inning but couldn’t drive a run across as the Lumberjacks fall in this Lake Superior Conference match up Thursday afternoon.

“We knew there was a lot at stake as far as conference goes and our guys came ready to play and we were fortunate to catch them on a little bit of a flat day.” Hermantown Head Baseball Coach Mike Zagelmeyer told Northland Sports Online. Zagelmeyer explained the Hawks still have to play Marshall twice and have a second match with Proctor, but today’s game was a big step in securing the Conference Championship.

Jared Thomas and Mike Robertson each had two runs batted in for Hermantown and Brian LeBlanc drove in four of Hermantown’s 10 runs on the day. The Hawks also left 10 runners on base Thursday and were aided by six Lumberjack errors on the afternoon.

“I’ve seen Adam (Hanson) on the top of his game and maybe he didn’t have his best stuff today, pitchers all go through that; but we took a lot of early swings to not get behind in the count. You can’t let yourself get deep in the count with a pitcher of that quality; and Cloquet did help us out a little in the first inning with a couple of errors” commented Zagelmeyer.

Hermantown improves to a perfect 10-0 on the season and has yet to lose a regular season game in football (8-0) or hockey (25-0). After two straight years of tough semi-final losses, the Hawks have their sights set on advancing to the state tournament. “That has been there goal from day one and through hard work they are putting themselves in position to get the prize” explained Zagelmeyer.

Senior shortstop Jared Thomas explained that all but a couple of players were on either the football or hockey teams that made it through the regular season unscathed, which is helping the cause for the local nine in the spring.

“A lot of us played hockey and the football team did it in the fall. This group of guys is really competitive and don’t like to lose. We try to play our hardest and best every game and try to win every game. We’ve done a good job of that in all three sports and hopefully we can keep that going.” Thomas added, “We’ve come so close the last two years in a row it kind of gives us some extra incentive to get back there and get it done.”

Thomas also pointed out an additional incentive; besides the baseball team starting a perfect 10-0, the Hawks softball team is also unbeaten at 9-0 and ranked #1 in the state in Class AA. “We are 10-0 now and the softball team is 8-0 and they play today. We certainly are rooting for them also, but we sure don’t want to be the first ones to lose.”

The Hawks are in action again Friday afternoon when they host Greenway in their seventh straight home game. The Hawks are in the middle of 12 consecutive games at home. Cloquet falls to 8-4 and they are home against Hibbing on Friday.

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com