Glen Strandberg
Sports Editor

It’s a good thing the Gopher Classic Tournament didn’t count in the league standings for the Forest Lake Legion baseball team. The tourney brought five games in three days, and by Sunday afternoon, Post 225 was dealing with a dismal 0-5 showing.

“Obviously not the way we wanted to finish the week,” head coach Kale Henry said.

Before heading to Eden Prairie for the Gopher Classic, Forest Lake had Mahtomedi in town on Monday, July 9, followed by another home game on Wednesday against Oakdale.

Those were both league games and Henry’s group had better results while playing at Schumacher Field.

Mahtomedi entered the evening with a record of 18-10, and it wouldn’t get any better when Forest Lake dropped them 3-2.

After a nine-day layoff, Brady Banse went the entire game for Post 225.

“Once he settled in he was very, very tough,” Henry said.

Mahtomedi scored once in the first and once in the second, but after that, Banse gave up just one hit over the last five innings, struck out five and walked two batters.

When Forest Lake was down 2-1 in the fifth, Drew Cremisino got on with a single and was brought all the way home on a two-out, two-run homer by Ken Stelter to make it the 3-2 final.

Oakdale (Tartan High School) visited The Ballpark on July 11, and their 22-8 record would also take a hit after Forest Lake exploded for nine runs in the fifth inning for a 15-6 win.

With Oakdale leading 3-2 in the first, Post 225 responded with three runs in the bottom of the inning, as Pat Larson came through with a two-run single.

On the mound, Brent Kolbow struggled with his command and Oakdale picked up two more runs in the top of the second.

No big deal. Forest Lake scored three more times in the bottom half of the inning to go up 6-4.

When Kolbow walked the lead-off batter in the third, Henry brought in Trip Schultz, who would pitch the remainder of the game and give up just two more runs in the fifth inning.

With the game tied 6-6, Forest Lake took advantage of Oakdale errors and also found some timely hitting on the way to the nine-run blowout.

Kolbow and Kyle Young each had two-run singles and Matt Zidar chipped in with an RBI double.

“So we got two nice wins to start the week and we’re looking forward to the weekend,” Henry said.

And maybe he should have stopped right there—two quality wins, a few days of sunshine and just call it a week.

Instead, the Post 225 team ventured off to Eden Prairie on Friday for an 8:30 a.m. game against Lakeville North at the Gopher Classic.

Forest Lake took a 1-0 lead in the third inning, but when Lakeville put up two in the fourth, Henry’s squad was on its way to loss No. 1.

Lakeville North used a two-run homer in the fifth as an exclamation point and pulled away with a 9-1 victory.

It didn’t get any easier in Friday’s afternoon game, as Forest Lake faced the defending champions, a team from St. Louis (Anheuser-Busch).

“I thought they were a beatable team,” Henry said. “I don’t think we played our best game.”

Banse was able to pitch into the sixth inning, but his offensive support had a difficult time with the opposing pitcher.

Forest Lake struck out nine times and was also haunted by short spurt that would put the game out of reach. Trailing 4-2 in the sixth, Post 225 saw St. Louis get four runs and the day would end with that 8-2 loss.

A bright spot for Forest Lake was Cole Goodyear.

“He had a nice tournament for us,” Henry said. “He swung the bat pretty well, delivered some key hits, got on base (and) drew a lot of walks.”

The boys had one game on Saturday, and that was an 8 a.m. start against Sartell.

Starting for the legion team was Larson, but the morning was a forgettable one as he gave up four runs on one hit and walked five.

Tom Fick would step in during the second inning and keep Forest Lake (7-5, 9-11) in contention in what would become a 5-3 loss.

“He pitched very, very well,” Henry said. “He gave us innings that we needed; we were running thin in the pitching department.”

Goodyear was 2-for-2 with two doubles and two walks, and Kolbow went 2-for-3 and scored a run.

Sunday’s double header didn’t go any better, with Forest Lake losing 10-2 to Omaha and 8-5 to Eden Prairie.

The regular season ended on Wednesday, July 18 and the playoffs take place the weekend of July 27-29.

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