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Forest Lake baseball survives another round of section playoffs
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Wednesday, 04 June 2008
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Glen Strandberg
Sports Editor
By the time Tuesday night rolled in, a lot more would be known about the Forest Lake baseball team’s chances in the 2008 section playoffs, because the first three games simply mirrored their wonderful or baffling regular season.
There was the methodical and satisfying 12-3 win over Princeton on Tuesday, May 27 to open Section 7AAA, but that was followed by the 12-0 clunker against Grand Rapids last Saturday afternoon.
“Well, we actually kind of imploded,” was how Brian Raabe summed up the defeat.
The Rangers responded to the loss by charging past Anoka, 9-2, later that same day, which kept their state tournament hopes from hitting the showers.
“To our team’s credit, we came back and won,” Raabe said. “The boys showed what kind of athletes they are by doing that. We had some adversity and rather than rolling over and just playing dead, we didn’t.”
Entering Tuesday afternoon’s matchup with Duluth Central (4-14), all Forest Lake had to do to reach the state tourney was win five in a row.
This long road out of 7AAA came as a result of the disappointing 12-0 result against Grand Rapids.
Hello, loser’s bracket.
Forest Lake ended the game with almost as many errors (three) as hits (four), as the Rangers offense struck out eight times in five innings.
“We did not play well at all. Our pitching was okay, but our fielding was atrocious and so was our hitting. We did not do anything well and we deserved to get beat 12-0. No question about it,” Raabe said.
Grand Rapids (21-1) scored once in the first off Forest Lake starter Matt Zidar, and then piled on with seven more in the second. The Rangers would end up using five pitchers in this contest.
Hanging tough
After the loss to the Thunderhawks, Raabe and his squad had a few hours rest before taking on Anoka. The same Anoka ball club the Rangers downed 9-1 on May 20.
In a double-elimination format, Raabe said there is always a chance that a team with one loss simply decides to pack it in and begin summer vacation. But Forest Lake refused to go out that way.
“In that game we had no errors, our pitching was good, our defense was very good and we had timely hitting,” he said. “And hey, we won.”
Even more telling was how his lineup came back, not only from the Grand Rapids debacle, but after falling behind 2-0 in the first inning.
Starter Michael Swenson didn’t have his usual stuff, so Kyle Jensen came in and gave the Rangers six, strong innings.
The offense turned itself around and put up nine unanswered runs for the 9-2 victory.
Billy Rosenthal went 2-for-3, Brent Kolbow went 2-for-4, and the team stole four bases, including Cole Goodyear smartly swiping home.
This was the group Raabe had watched over the second half of the schedule, which was the same type of performance he saw May 27 when the Rangers whacked Princeton, 12-3.
Forest Lake beat up on the Tigers pitching staff by scoring four runs in the second, and seven in the bottom of the sixth.
Princeton had crept back in the game by shrinking a 5-0 deficit down to 5-3 in the top of the sixth, before the Rangers offense erupted.
Jensen not only came on in relief to pick up the save, but he also belted a surprising home run that essentially finished off the Tigers.
One more win
On June 3, Forest Lake (13-11) did indeed knock off Duluth Central, 5-3.
The victory placed the Rangers in a 2:30 p.m. game against the winner of Andover/Duluth East.
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