Marshall speedster Baamlak Haugen (3) raced in close but was foiled by Cloquet-Carlton goalkeeper Gracie Meagher.

Was Tampa Bay’s Game 4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers the most dramatic and exciting last-inning rally in World Series history? Was Duluth Denfeld’s 1-0 quarterfinal boys soccer upset at unbeaten Cloquet-Esko-Carlton, and the Hunters ensuing Section 7A championship run the biggest high school sports story of the pandemic? Was Duluth East’s rise from a 24-0 second-quarter deficit at Hermantown for 41 consecutive points the biggest comeback of this or any high school football season?

What a week!

I’ve been watching and enjoying World Series games since I was a little kid in the 1950s, with a black-and-white TV. Bu tI have never seen anything like Game 4 in Arlington, Texas, at the National League pandemic bubble stadium. The Series was following form, with pitchers and players going into games as though through the revolving doors of analytics. Dodgers win, Rays win, Dodgers go up two games to one, and appear about to take a stranglehold on this Series, particularly after blowing a big lead that let Tampa Bay catch up 6-6, only for the Dodgers to inch back ahead 7-6.

Last o the ninth, and KIenley Jansen, the big, burly 100-mph closer striding in to finish it.Yoshi Tsutsugo strikes out to open the last of the ninth. Kevin Kiermaier grounds a hard single up the middle, putting the thing run on first.Joe Wendle socks a line drive, but right to Joc Pedersen in center field. Two out. Randy Arozarena, the Rays amazing first-year player who has been the best individual player in the playoffs, draws a walk, putting runners on first and second, but with two out. The batter is Brett Phillips, one of those fringe players we’ve never heard of.

The slide shows Phillips is hitting only .198. He was acquired from Kansas City in August, only because he’s quick, and could be a productive pinch-runner. That’s how he got into Game 4, staying in at right field because the Rays had used so many players, And now he come up to bat in the last of the ninth with two out. Jansen fires, fast balls and cut fast balls, close pitches, all of them. Some are balls, some are strikes, and some are even called what the video proves they are, and after several dramatic minutes, the count goes to 3 and 2. Right-hander Jansen fires a pitch, and let-handed hitting Phillips swings, sending a soft little Texas-League liner to right-center.

Cloquet-Carlton goalkeeper Gracie Meagher blocked a header attempt by Marshall scoring leader Maren Friday in the Lumberjacks 1-0 victory for the Section 7A championship. Photos by John Gilbert.

Chris Taylor, one of the Dodgers stars, comes in hard from center field, knowing he has no chance of catching the ball, or of throwing out the tying run from second, but eager to cut off any chance of the aggressive Cuban, Arozarena, even thinking about trying to score from first. But in his haste to field the single cleanly, he doesn’t! The ball glances off the heel of his glove and bounces toward right field as the thing run scores. Tucker hustles to retrieve it and throws an adrenaline-charged rocket toward the plate.

Sure enough, Arozarena, who learned his aggressive style growing up in Cuba, comes barreling around third and gets the green light. In that same millisecond, LA first baseman Max Muncy cuts off Taylor’s throw, which looked like it might be a one-hop strike to the plate. Muncy whirls and fires to catcher Will Smith. Neither fielder is aware that coming around third, Arozarena stumbles for two or three steps and then tumbles to the ground! He simply fell down, finishing his fall with a stylish barrel-roll. He comes right back up to his feet, but stops, knowing now he can’t beat the throw home. It’s an easy catch for Smith — except that he started to whirl to tag the runner-who-isn’t-there. In doing so, he botches catching the ball, which squirts away toward the backstop.

Arozarena starts running again, diving and crawling to reach his hand out to the plate before Smith can get back. A walk-off single-and-two-errors play to score the tying and winning runs, and Tampa Bay goes into massive celebration mode with an 8-7 victory to tie the series 2-2.
Never seen anything like it, and it’s too bad TV ratings are so far down across the country, because it was a game that deserved to be seen.

Duluth area high school soccer has been blessed with some outstanding boys and girls teams, but the best have been the Cloquet-Carlton girls and the Cloquet-Esko-Carlton-Carlton-Carlton boys. The girls lost to Duluth East in the final regular-season game for their only loss, while the boys finished a perfect season undefeated. East was also good, and so was Marshall on the girls side, and Hermantown, East, and Denfeld were all tough challengers in boys 7A.

In the last week of the regular season, though, Denfeld’s boys nosedived. They lost 4-0 to a strong Grand Rapids team, tied Hermantown 1-1, after getting unceremoniously blown out 11-0 by Cloquet-Esko-Carlton-Carlton-Carlton. The Lumberjacks had been doing that to foes, goo foes, all season. But 11-0 in soccer is like 85-0 in football. But Denfeld opened the playoffs beating Hermantown 4-0. The Hunters reward was a trip to Cloquet, where Demetri Regas was superb and stunned Cloquet 1-0 in the quarterfinals. A tough way for an unbeaten powerhouse to end its season.

Centennial goalkeeper soared above the crowd to knock away a Duluth East threat in the white-clad Cougars 3-0 Section 7AA championship game.

Denfeld then faced Grand Rapids and avenged another of those late losses, 5-0, only to have goalkeeper Regas struck in the head and suffering a concussion. Conrad Lazzaro came in, and the Hunters never missed a beat, finishing that 5-0 shutout and, as No. 8 seed, facing Princeton for the 7A final. Keegan Chasteey scored his 20th goal of the season, and Skylar Fossum got another for a 2-0 halftime lead, and Lazzaro held on for a 2-1 victory and, with a 10-4-1 record, the 7A title. With no state tournament in our pandemic-restricted fall, that’s as good as it gets in high school soccer.

On the girls side, Cloquet-Carlton was No. 1 seed and Marshall No. 2, and both had lost just once. They met at Public Schools Stadium, as Katie Turner scored the only goal of the game and, while Marshall heavily outshot the Lumberjacks, Gracie Meagher made 9 saves to get the championship shutout 1-0.

The luck didn’t hold all the way, though, as Duluth East battled past some tough Twin Cities suburban teams, like Anoka at home and Andover on the road, and wound up against Centennial for the 7AA soccer title. It was a tough, close battle, scoreless much of the way before Centennial got a goal, then another. In the second half, Centennial took control of the game, turning the Greyhounds back repeatedly at midfield, and won the title 3-0.

East, however, gained incredible doses of bragging rights on the football field. The Greyhounds had blitzed Denfeld, then got blitzed by Grand Rapids, and went up to Hermantown where they both got blitzed and blitzed, if that makes sense. Hermantown stalked to an early lead, and expanded it to 24-0 in the second quarter. East got a touchdown back when sophomore Austan Orvedahl zipped into the end zone. In the second half, there was an amazing turnabout. Orvedahl scored two more touchdowns, and for the game, carried 21 times for 141 yards, while junior quarterback Dean Hudoba passed for over 100 more yards, connecting on two touchdowns to Simon Randorf, including a 50-yard scoring bomb on fourth and 10 in the third quarter. The Hawks never knew what hit them, and East, trailing 24-0, came back to win 41-14.

You can’t make that stuff up. And you may never see another game like any of those.
Another bit of good news is that the Vikings did not lose last weekend. They were in their bye week. They do have to play again, and it will be interesting to see how long it takes them to find any stride on Sunday, when they play at Green Bay, where the Packers are 5-1. With Chicago also 5-1, and Detroit winning for the second time last weekend, the Vikings are secure in last place in the division, and finds a rocky schedule ahead — in case the Packers aren’t tough enough.

I sent a message to a friend and asked what he thought the chances would be for the Vikings at Green Bay Sunday, and he had a simple prediction: “Packers by 75.”