The Champlin LoGators and Brooklyn Park Norsemen are on opposite spectrums of the Metro Minny Class B amateur baseball league.
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Brooklyn Park’s Tim Munn dives in safely back to first base on a pick-off attempt by Champlin’s Josh Peterson. Munn went 1-for-1 with two walks, one hit by pitch and a stolen base in the Norsemen’s 2-1 loss to Champlin July 12. (Sun Post staff photo by Chris Chesky)
The LoGators have been a fixture in the league for many years, while the Norsemen field a much younger team and have been in the league for only two years.
While Champlin fields one of the older teams in the league, head coach Matt Marek has done everything he can to recruit younger players for the LoGators squad.
“We’ve spent a lot of time getting younger this year,” Marek said. “We added 11 new guys and we’re just trying to stay competitive, which means getting younger.”
One of those new players is Josh Peterson, an incoming senior at Legacy Christian Academy. Peterson pitched to a 0.43 ERA and struck out 49 batters in 32 and one-thirds innings during the high school season, but he understood town team baseball is a much tougher challenge than high school.
“It’s a little different than high school and legion ball, but I’m ready to play some more,” Peterson said. “The guys I play with don’t usually smoke and chew and they grow beards, which I can’t do yet.”
Peterson fared well in his LoGators debut, as he pitched seven and one-third innings and allowed only four hits while walking three and striking out four batters in what turned out to be a 2-1 victory for the LoGators.
“I walked the first guy, so I had trouble throwing strikes, but I tried to stay ahead, get outs and make them swing the bat,” Peterson said. “I felt pretty good and I’m feeling hopeful for the future.”
Marek was impressed with what he saw from his team’s newest addition.
“When you pound down the zone and work the knees all game, I don’t care if you’re playing the Brooklyn Park Norsemen or the Minnesota Twins, you’re going to get a lot of ground balls,” Peterson said. “It was a great performance by him, being a high school junior, playing against a lot of college players and guys that are older.
“He didn’t shy away and he rose to the challenge.”
Peterson also helped jump start the LoGators offense by drawing a walk and scoring on a double by catcher Kyle McDermott to give Champlin a 1-0 advantage. Jeff Saari, a late addition to the starting lineup, drove in Champlin’s second run with an RBI single to increase the LoGators’ lead to 2-0. Saari also threw out a runner at home in the first inning to keep the game scoreless.
“I have to give him some credit because he was put in the starting lineup right before the first pitch,” Marek said. “He came in and threw out a runner at the plate in the first inning and he went 2-for-3 with one RBI, which was an unbelievable performance.”
Brooklyn Park head coach Tony Kiminski did not like what he saw from his team right away in the contest and feared his team was due for a bad night.
“We weren’t focused from the get-go today and we tried to pick it up in the ninth inning,” Kiminski said. “That just doesn’t work against a team like that.
‘We had some big mental errors and it is hard to recover from that.”
Brandon Rushmeyer started on the mound for the Norsemen and pitched seven innings and allowed six hits and walked one batter while striking out eight. He allowed both LoGator runs in the second inning.
“He kept them off bay a little bit, but a big error in the first inning hurt us and cost us a run,” Kiminski said. “Against a team like Champlin that has been around a long time, you just can’t give them an edge.”
Champlin’s Jeff Heur came in to close the game in relief of Peterson and allowed only one unearned run in his one and two-thirds innings. Brooklyn park scored its lone run of the game on an RBI groundout with one out in the bottom of the ninth.
Heur stranded a runner on third by forcing a groundout to end the game.
“We never make it easy, but we seem to make big plays when we need them,” Marek said. “That’s kind of the story tonight, because this Brooklyn Park team has had a good year and these are the types of games they play.
“Brooklyn Park has a lot of experience with close games and they find ways to win, so we were lucky to pull this one out in the end.”
The contest between Brooklyn Park and Champlin proved to be the Norsemen’s final game of the week, but Champlin carried over its momentum to earn wins over Andover and Anoka last week. Marek believed after the win over Brooklyn park that the victory could spark a rally for the LoGators.
“We were 1-5 in our last six games and we lost a couple tough ones in that run, so it is nice for our team to be able to pull one of those out,” Marek said. “It has been a tough week and a half, so this one was huge.
“We share the same field, so we have developed a nice little rivalry, which makes this one fun.”
In order for Champlin to continue its winning streak, Marek believes the LoGators must continue receiving great performances from their hurlers.
“The big thing for us is to stay healthy and continue to get good pitching performances,” Marek said. “Getting guys going deep in games will be big and if our pitchers can throw strikes and we can play behind them, then we’ll be fine.”
Kiminski, on the other hand, wants to see his team get back to where it was before the game against Champlin.
“We have to get our bats going again,” Kiminski said. “Our approach changed today and we have to get back to that aggressive approach in the batters’ box.”
Contact Chris Chesky at chris.chesky@ecm-inc.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MNSunSports or @SunSportsChris.