American Legion baseball teams from Cloquet, Esko, Carlton and Moose Lake entered this week's regional playoffs.
Cloquet, as the No. 4 seed, is playing well at just the right time.
Coach Steve Jezierski said that while some teams play their regular seasons with an eye on the seedings for playoffs, he takes a different philosophy with Cloquet's boys of summer.
"I've been around long enough to know that if you win, you win no matter what your seed is," he said. "We were a sixth seed in the playoffs last year and went to the finals. We treat the regular season as a way to play some ball without the intensity that some programs have. That's the right approach, I think, because it's summer for these kids."
That's not to say the team doesn't play their best.
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"We play hard, though, don't get me wrong," he added. "But for us, the most important thing is who is playing well going into the playoffs, and we've won four straight at the moment."
Still, Cloquet might have finished with a higher seed had a rained out game with Hermantown been made up. The team finished 10-9, with a 4-2 record in seeding games.
"We would have been in a three-way tie if we had played and beaten Hermantown," Jezierski said. "We would have been tied with Central and Lakeview and all of us would have been 5-2 with a win and a loss against each other. I'm not sure how they would have broken that tie."
Cloquet helped themselves with a 4-2 win over Central last Friday in a playoff seeding game. All seeding games are nine innings instead of the customary seven, but Cloquet handled the added pressure on its pitching staff by getting the best start of the summer from Thomas Rogers.
"It was a good ballgame. We fell behind 1-0 early, took a 3-1 lead and never trailed after that," Jezierski said. "I'm not a big fan of nine-inning games in the summer, because we're used to playing seven, especially in our tournaments. Lining up pitching for nine inning games can be hard."
Rogers throttled Central on three hits in the win.
"He's struggled a bit this summer," Jezierski said of his ace. "He's had a bit of a dead arm, despite throwing only 38 innings in the spring. That's less than usual, but he didn't have his good stuff at the start of the summer season. It forced him to work on his location, and he was wise enough to figure out his need to do that."
Pitching is again a strong point for Cloquet.
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"I like our pitching with Rogers and Mike Thomas and Dedric Clark," Jezierski said. Clark shut out Superior on two hits in a 6-0 win last week.
The playoffs begin Wednesday, as this edition goes to press, with a game against Virginia at Portage Field in Cohasset. Cloquet defeated Virginia in a nine-inning seeding game earlier this season by 6-4.
"They're a fairly young team, aggressive at the plate, and we don't always necessarily want to throw strikes against them," Jezierski said. "They are dangerous and we'll have to play well to beat them."
The second game in the double-elimination tournament is Wednesday evening, with Thursday games scheduled for the evening in Grand Rapids.
"Rapids is the first seed again, and they would be in our half of the bracket if we come through Wednesday," Jezierski said. "Last year we played them in the finals coming up through the losers' bracket. This time, if we play them and everything goes right we'll have our pitching lined up. I'd rather play them early."
The tournament runs through Saturday, with all games after Wednesday to be played in Grand Rapids.
