Last year, Carlton was able to sponsor a VFW baseball team for the first time in recent memory. This year, Carlton tried to find enough players to support both a VFW team and Legion baseball team for the summer, but they were unable to come up with enough for both and instead will just have a Legion program this summer.
"A lot of the VFW team players from last year were too old to play VFW again," said coach Mark Saunders. "There were more players of Legion age so we dropped VFW."
Legion players can be as old as 19 as long as they didn't turn 19 until after the first of the year, while VFW players must be 16 and younger.
"We still needed to include three other high schools to come up with enough Legion-aged players," explained Saunders. "We have one player from Cotton, one from AlBrook and two from Cromwell and the remaining eight kids are from Carlton. Cromwell hasn't had varsity baseball for three years, so we are on the inexperienced side."
Carlton will play with a very young roster of players with only one graduated senior; the rest of the players are juniors and seniors.
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"We are young, but the kids are getting better and playing good baseball," mentioned Saunders. "The kids are dedicated and foregoing other activities to improve their game."
The Carlton Legion team would like to thank Cloquet American Legion Post 262 for the support they have given the Carlton team and they look to try and improve as the season wears on.
"Summer ball up north is more popular than spring ball," said Saunders. "Nashwauk's team is made up of mostly 19-year-olds returning for the summer. They have only three kids from their school team. We need to turn things around down here if we expect to compete."
On a year-in and year-out basis teams from the northern portions of the section are in the championship game of Section 7A with BEST, Nashwauk-Keewatin, Chisholm and Ely among the favorites every year.
"Our goal this year is to improve our baseball fundamentals and raise the baseball IQ of all our players," suggested Saunders. "Players who understand the game will be better at playing the game."
