Lumberjacks Advance In Section 7AAA Playoffs

Wes Vork-NSO

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Mar 10

Wes Vork-NSO

The Cloquet Lumberjacks opened the Section 7AAA playoffs Wednesday night with a 70-53 win over the Chisago Lakes Wildcats at Cloquet Senior High School. With the win, the Jacks advance to the section finals against Duluth Central on Friday Night at Duluth East High School.

The Lumberjacks jumped out to an early twelve point lead at 20-8 behind some early balanced scoring from Cloquet’s RaRa Jones soft jumpers, Peter LaCourse’s two big three-pointers and Chad Calcaterra’s play in the low post. However, Cloquet saw the lead soon disappear as the Wildcats fought back in the later part of the first half to tie the score at 25-25.

Ben Figini got the Wildcats close in the first half with impressive drives to the basket and some nice outside shooting. Still, Cloquet would put some distance between themselves and the Wildcats by closing out the first half with a three point 31-28 lead at the break.

The Lumberjacks came out in the second half with a determined mind set and quickly built a double digit lead. Cloquet continued to work the ball inside to Calcaterra, who capitalized easily inside. Jones continued to fire away from the outside and Tim Defoe, whose 10 point effort sparked the second half, led Cloquet to the 17 point win.

“That is the best seven seeded team I have seen,” head coach Steve Battaglia told Northland Sports Online. “They are a good team with a great player in Figini. We didn’t do some things in the first half that let them back in the game, but we corrected them in the second half and did a good job defensively. Offensively we were more patient and executed as to what we wanted.”

Cloquet did a good job forcing the Wildcats in to mistakes, committing 24 turnovers. Wildcat miscues allowed the Lumberjacks to convert 22 points off of them. The Lumberjacks also shot an amazing 27/54 from the field for an outstanding 50% tabulation.

Cloquet was led in scoring by RaRa Jones with 23, Calcaterra added 15, Tim Defoe added 10 points, Andy Wappes poured in 9 points, Peter LaCourse finished with 8, Ben Shultz added 3, and Zach Zezulka ended with 2 points in the win.

Ben Figini led all scorers with 28 points; he also finished with 14 rebounds to lead all rebounders. Joe Fernstrom added 10 points for Chisago Lakes and Bryan Eichten added 7 points in the Wildcat loss.

Dwight Cadwell can be reached at dwight@northlandsportsonline.com