Minnesota Blast finish Season

The Cloquet-based Minnesota Blast U-18 girls fastpitch softball team finished the season over this past weekend by going 1-3 in the ASA Northern National Fastpitch Tournament in Rochester, Minnesota. The Cloquet team is comprised of the entire Cloquet High School team and one player each from Cromwell and Carlton.

The Blast opened play with a no-hitter by Chandler Beaupre and a 1-0 win over Gillette, Wyoming and the Gillette Jays. The lone run of the game was scored in the very first inning by Cloquet’s shortstop Katrina Smith.

“Katrina opened the game by reaching base and we bunted her to second and got her to third on a wild pitch,” said Cloquet coach Kerry Rodd. “We ended up with an infield pop-up to second base and Katrina made a heads up play by tagging up and scoring when the second baseman turned her back to the infield.”

That would be all the Blast would need as defense and Beaupre slammed the door on the Jays.

Game two action saw the Blast ride the strong pitching of Kaylee McMillen to a 3-0 lead through five innings against the Monroe Lightning of New Glaurus, Wisconsin which is a suburb of Madison. However, the Blast gave up two in the sixth and another in the seventh and then lost the game in extra innings 4-3.

Friday morning the Blast faced a very tough Trojanettes team out of Clarksdale, Missouri and fell 8-2, but it was another game that was a seesaw affair until late in the game.

“We were down only 2-1 into the fifth inning,” mentioned Rodd. “We had a runner thrown out at home in the top of the inning and then they came back and put up a crooked number to go up 8-1. We fought back and got it to 8-2 and a chance to get closer, but like all good teams they didn’t let us get back into it.”

The Blast were eliminated in their final game of the event 1-0 when Beaupre pitched a no-hitter through regulation in a game that was 0-0 between the Blast and Ziehm Extreme out of Coleman, Michigan.

“We got great pitching all tournament long from both pitchers,” explained Rodd. “We had a chance in the seventh to go up with two runners on base and Sami Zeadow crushed a ball to deep right-centerfield, but the centerfielder made a diving catch to preserve the game and then they got us in the bottom of the eight to win it.”

The Blast finished with a 32-17-1 record on the season as well as taking second place in the Minnesota Metro State Fastpitch Tournament in St. Cloud and third place in the USSSA State Tournament three weeks ago in Cloquet.
Kerry Rodd