Softball teams begin their section tournaments

The postseason is at hand for the area softball teams and Monday Red Lake visited Red Lake County Central in the No. 8 vs. No. 9 play-in game for North Sub-Section 8A.

That winner heads to Badger-Greenbush-Middle River today to tangle with top-seeded BGMR.

Also today No. 6 Blackduck visits No. 3 Lake of the Woods and No. 7 Kelliher-Northome travels to No. 2 Red Lake Falls.

In today’s other lower-bracket game No. 4 Northern Freeze will host No. 5 Indus.

Today’s winners head to BGMR Thursday for the sub-section semifinals and championship game.

Both semifinalists will travel to Lake of the Woods on June 1 along with the top two survivors of the South Sub-Section in the 8A final four. Elimination games will be played on June 1 and the championship game is set for June 2.

Among the teams trying to represent the South in the section championship series is Bagley which hosts Ada-Borup today. The Flyers are the fourth seed in the South while Ada-Borup is ranked fifth.

A win would send Bagley to Norman County East on Thursday.

Sacred Heart enters the postseason as the No. 1 team in 8A South.

Cass Lake-Bena and Laporte are in Section 6A and they will square off 3 p.m. today in Menahga. Laporte enters the tournament seeded No. 10 while the Panthers are No. 7. The winner will face No. 2 Menahga today at 4:30 p.m.

In last week’s regular-season finale, CL-B blanked Red Lake 14-0 and Autumn Brunelle pitched a no-hitter.

Hawley is ranked No. 1 in the North and Ashby is seeded first in the South.

The Blackduck baseball team split its last four games, losing 10-9 to Cass Lake-Bena and 10-6 to Fosston, the latter contest a week ago. In between those games the Drakes belted Red Lake 19-0 and Bagley 14-3.

Blackduck is 16-3 and has dropped to No. 6 in the state Class A poll.

Cass Lake-Bena is 14-3 after stopping Laporte 11-1 and Kelliher-Northome 6-2 last week. In the victory over Laporte Taylor Humphrey improved to 4-0 on the mound while Caleb Fisher and Jake Ellis each had three hits.

Wesley Moe collected his fifth pitching victory in the win over K-N.

On Monday the Panthers, who are riding a 10-game winning streak, and Blackduck met in Blackduck for the conference championship. Cass Lake-Bena was the South champion and Blackduck took the North crown.

The same teams squared off last year for the league title and CL-B prevailed.

Cass Lake-Bena seniors Chad Wittner, Brian Vail and Humphrey have each been with the team for four years and during that span the Panthers have gone 72-14-1.

In other area baseball action last week Red Lake (1-10) lost 19-0 to Blackduck, K-N (6-10) split four games, defeating Walker-Hackensack-Akeley 6-2 and Littlefork-BF 10-0 but losing 10-3 to Lake of the Woods and 6-2 to CL-B, Bagley (10-8) fell 14-3 to Blackduck, 7-3 to Northern Freeze and 6-3 to Fosston, and Laporte (2-11) lost 5-1 to WHA and 11-1 to Cass Lake-Bena.