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Michelle Lund finished 55th and her teammate Angela Gaffney finished 59th representing Grantsburg well at the state cross country race in Wisconsin Rapids.

The Frederic girls’ team finished 7th overall with Sam Nelson finishing 19th and finishing first for the Vikings.

Congratulations, girls! Well done!!!

Angela Gaffney, Michelle Lund, and Steven McKinley represent the Grantsburg Pirates at the state cross country tournament held today at Wisconsin Rapids.

Angela (Jr.) finished 33rd last year and Michelle Lund (Sr.) finished 61st. Steven McKinley (Sr.) finished 65th last year.

Also congratulations to the Webster boys (ranked 6th) and Frederic girls (ranked 13th) cross country teams as they both qualified as teams. Webster won state last year.

The Webster Tigers (ranked 8th in the state) take on Glenwood City (ranked 12th) this afternoon in the second game of the WIAA state playoffs. Webster beat the Northwood/Solon Springs Evergreens 42-0 on Tuesday to advance to this game today. Good luck, Tigers!

The Frederic Vikings play Shell Lake (ranked 7th in D7) in second round football action as well. The Vikings, though seeded lower than the Lakers, are hosting the game.

Finally, the Grantsburg volleyball team is traveling to Clear Lake to try and defend their sectional championship and make it back to the Resch Center in Green Bay for the second year in a row. The Pirates take on Melrose-Mindoro for that right.

Grantsburg is ranked number one in the state, Melrose-Mindoro was unranked and had a number two seed in the tournament (Mondovi was the number one seed).

You can listen to the broadcast of the volleyball match on 105.7 WXCX starting at 7pm. Go Pirates!!!

The WIAA has ruled to move the pitching rubber back from 40′ to 43′ for the upcoming and subsequent years. (43′ is the distance for international and collegiate play)

Grantsburg has always had excellent pitching and the girls have been practicing over and over at the 40′ distance (and to be fair, so has everyone else). I wonder how this will affect the pitching for Michelle Lund et. al. for the Pirates come this spring.

I’m sure the hitters will be happy to hear about the change. I would expect scoring (and walks) to be up significantly this year.

Here’s an article about the change.

The Pirate softball team is once again the Division 3 state champions. They won back in 2006 in the longest game in Division 3 state history (12 innings). They were able to get this one in regulation.

The Pirates dispatched the Laconia Spartans today, 3-0 after avenging a 2004 loss to the Weyawega-Fremont Indians yesterday 7-2 in the semi-final game.

There is so much to write about with this run to the championship, I don’t know where to begin.

There were a lot of defensive highlights this weekend. Heather Davison had a game changing catch in the semi-finals… Tiff Meyer layed out for one today, snagged it and threw a bullet to first base to get the runner by a hair… Ingrid Ames had a couple amazing, tough catches… Annie Palmquist, too. The defense of Grantsburg was great when it needed to be.

The hitting all weekend was timely. Heather Davison was outstanding, as was Michelle Lund, Emily Cole and Tiff Meyer. The baserunning was outstanding and aggressive again and it paid off.

The pitching, though, was the absolute best. Michelle Lund was in a "Michael Jordan, NBA Finals" type of a zone. Nothing could rattle her and she was pitching bb’s up there. She had 14 strikeouts in the semi-finals and five today. If it weren’t for the errors today (5) it could’ve been the best game in the state tournament (although the division four game saw a perfect game pitched by a freshman!).

It was a very fun experience to announce these games. I’ve been privileged to go to state to cover athletics five times now and this is the first time one of the teams has won the tournament.

Congratulations, Pirates! You are a great team and a fun bunch of people!

By the way… with only one player lost to graduation (Ingrid Ames) it’s time to start thinking repeat!

Sectional Champions!

The Grantsburg Pirates softball team has advanced to the Division 3 state tournament by beating Park Falls 10-1 then dispatching of the Prescott Cardinals 7-3!

Both games were won in different ways, but in both the common thread was Grantsburg making the most out of the opportunities given to them (hello, life lesson!).

In the first game the Pirates had the patience of Job as they watched the pitcher from Park Falls implode before their very eyes. I think the Pirates only had one earned run in that game, a Lauren Romanowski two-run home run (the other girl, Emily Cole, reached on an error). That was a lot of fun. Romo came out to catch the next inning with the biggest, most sincere smile I’ ve seen in a long time. She gets to keep that memory for the rest of her life.

The second game saw Grantsburg bats come alive. I think they had something like 13 or 14 hits. They did leave the bases loaded twice so the score could have been much worse (or better, I guess). Cody Crawford hit a three-run home run in this one! So in two games the 8 and 9 batters were hitting like cleanup batters. Lots of fun!

Of course the thing that this whole run is constituted on is that golden right arm of Michelle Lund. She went 14 innings today (Jack Morris only went 10) and I think she only gave up one or two earned runs. She was in absolute command today striking out 13 batters on the day. Good job, Michelle!

I have been REALLY impressed with the girls the past three games especially. They have put together some real team wins.

If Grantsburg’s defense can step up just a little bit and their offense stay where its at… good luck rest of the field, Grantsburg’s a HOT ONE, BABY!

This picture is from the Stillwater Dome… waaaayyy back in early April.

Great season, girls!

Photo stolen from Steve Johnson's site

I’m still very impressed with the girls game last night. If they can capture whatever magic they had last night and apply it for the next four games, they will be coming home with a very nice trophy.

A couple things I want to point out then I would advise you to go to assistant coach Steve Johnson’s recap as he went pretty in depth with the game. I know he was very happy with the way the girls played as well.

1. The defense really sticks out in my mind. They showed they can handle it when the Michelle Lund doesn’t strike everyone out (I think SCC struck out only four times – they were very good hitters).

I recall one error by the team and that was a tough play where first baseman Annie Palmquist was stretched out trying to make a play and dropped the throw. That’s the only real miscue I can think of.

Grantsburg threw a runner out at the plate with a perfect relay from Cody Crawford (CF) to Ingrid Ames (SS) to Lauren Romanowski (C). The runner had no chance. It was a picture perfect relay.

In the top of the third inning third baseman Sarah Wald had some great plays. She had a hand in all three outs. The first was with runners on first and second. The batter bunted to her because Sarah seemed to be playing back, but with the pitch Wald moved in. The bunt was good but Wald was there quickly, turned 180 degrees, threw and forced the runner out at third. The next batter also bunted but in the air. Wald caught the ball, whirled and whipped the ball to second base to double off the runner, a double play. We also learned that Sarah Wald’s smile is infectious.

Tiff Meyer had some very good plays, catching line drives, tracking down pop-ups and making the difficult look routine.

2. Baserunning was agressive, but smart. During the Cumberland game (the regional semi-final) the girls made some very strange moves on the basepaths and it likely cost them a couple runs. This game it was different. I remember one play where it was first and third and the runner went to steal second, the catcher faked the throw to second then whipped it over the third baseman’s head and a run scored. The thing about that play that I was impressed with is that the runner stealing second didn’t even hesitate and took third easily on the overthrow.

3. Attitude. I don’t know if the lightbulb just happened to turn on for me last night, but I saw a bunch of girls out there that seemed to be having the times of their lives. That is such a great thing. This game is FUN and even though these games are important, they’re not THAT important. It seems the coaching staff has done a phenominal job getting the girls to a place where their fundamentals are outstanding and their attitudes are even better.

Good luck at Sectionals, girls. Keep smiling.

Photo courtesy of Scott Hoffman of Hoffman Photo

It was a good night for the baseball and softball teams.

The Pirate girls won their opening playoff game against the Cumberland Beavers 5-4. The score was 5-1 heading into the top of the seventh, and final, inning.

A couple errors and good hitting by Cumberland led to some major excitement, but in the end, with a runner stranded at third base, Michelle Lund struck out the final batter of the night to preserve a regional championship opportunity.

The Pirates play again on Thursday evening and will take on either St. Croix Central or Glenwood City (surprisingly, their score wasn’t available at the time of this writing 9:45 p.m.). You can hear the game on 105.7 WXCX. Softball playoff bracket.

Congratulations to the Frederic Vikings, they knocked of #2 seeded Shell Lake tonight 4-1 which advances the Vikings to the regional championship game versus Birchwood, who ended Luck’s season. The final score there was 11-1.

The Grantsburg baseball team beat the conference champions tonight on a walk-off two run homerun by Trent Bonneville. Grantsburg won the game 6-4. It was Bonneville’s second dinger of the game. A lot of people were still around the softball field when the crowd erupted over at the baseball field and we could see a couple Pirates rounding the bases and a lot of St. Croix Falls Saints dejectedly walking back to their dugout. Kind of a neat perspective. Baseball playoff bracket.

A quick spring storm only delayed the inevitable for the Siren/Webster team tonight. They were facing the number 2 team in Division 3 tonight and it ended up pretty ugly. Grantsburg won 18-0.

I have to give Siren/Webster credit because they really held Grantsburg in check (relative to my expectations) until the fifth inning when the Pirates erupted for ten runs. Siiri Larsen pitched pretty well, but in the end the S/W team had some mental breakdowns, some throwing errors and some pitching mistakes that led to the very lopsided score.

Michelle Lund struck out 8 (out of a possible 12 outs) and only allowed one hit. Sarah Wald had a good night at the plate going 3 for 3 with an RBI and a couple runs scored. Ingrid Ames hit a bases loaded triple that one hopped the fence in that fifth inning.

Grantsburg came out swinging the bat and it paid off for them once again. Grantsburg is now 15-0, 6-0 in the West Lakeland. Then next closest in the conference only had two wins coming into tonight’s games.

My next broadcast is May 12 and its a baseball game with Grantsburg travelling to Pine City to take on the Dragons.

Steven McKinley, Michelle Lund and Angela Gaffney have made it to the state Cross-Country meet. Congratulations on a great accomplishment!

The state championships will be held Saturday, Nov. 1 at Ridges Golf Course in Wisconsin Rapids. Steven will be running at 10, the girls will be firing off the starting line at 1pm.

Congratulations to Steven, Michelle and Angela!

Cross country is a sport that I admittedly don’t get. Don’t mistake that for disrespecting, heck my wife was a  great CC’er in high school and college. Her favorite poster was one that said, “Cross country runners get to enjoy four years of high school, football players get five.”

I suppose cross country would be about the most enduring sport in the sense that it must be considered one of the first. Of course back in the day people would run to catch stuff or to not be caught. Now they run around on a golf course or through the woods to beat one another.

We Are Grantsburg would like to congratulate all-conference runners from Grantsburg.

Girls:

Michelle Lund
Angela Gaffney
Jessica Banks
Aimee Vantatenhove

Boys:

Steven McKinley
Matt Emerson

Congratulations!