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Freeze nine looks for a little success


Spring - when a young man’s fancy turns to baseball... That is, if she want’s to remain his fancy!
It should be a good year for baseball in Northern Freeze territory this year. Nearly all of last year’s squad returns with experience and a new co-op will add players from Stephen /Argyle brining the team a measure of depth. The co-op included Tri-County and MCC last season and coach Kent Benson is excited about the newest additions to his roster.
“Stephen/Argyle coming fills in a gap for us,” Benson said. “They bring us three juniors and a couple of sophomores. They are going to give us some options we didn’t have last season.”
The Freeze struggled last season with a young team, but there were signs of better times ahead. Nearly all of that team will return this season.
“We lost a lot of close games last year,” said Benson. “And we only lost one senior to graduation. There is a lot of experience coming back. We are looking for a good year, but we do have one of the toughest conferences in the state.”
That would be the Northern Diamond Conference. According to Benson, the whole conference was young last year, with relatively few seniors playing. With all that experience returning, it should make for a banner year for the area’s high school baseball fans.
“The quality of baseball is going to be really good this year,” Coach Benson predicted. “There are a lot of kids coming back on all of the teams.”
Who are the teams to beat this year?
“Red Lake County and BGMR are the two I look at,” Benson said. “There will probably be some other surprises in there as well, but these are the two that stand out right now.”
Benson, who has been at the helm of the baseball team for the past six years, is expecting about 45 kids playing from grades 7-12 this year. He said they are working hard to build their JR program and strengthen the program’s future. Gary Taylor and Mark Hendrickson are the assistant coaches and Hendrickson will be coaching the JR squad.
As expected, positions on the squad are technically open as the team begins practice. Having said that, Benson added that pitching is the key to high school baseball, and he is expecting good pitching from his boys.
Evan Maki, Chase Boen and jacob Grandstrand all return to the mound and Matt Borowicz and Jarred Jacobson are coming from Stephen/Argyle to add depth to that position.
“From what I've e seen in practice, they throw very well,” Benson said. There are some other that might develop during the year.”
The infield is basically returning from last season. There will likely be some shuffling due to the additional players coming into toke squad.
“That just makes us stronger,” Coach Benson stated. Depth is a wonderful thing.”
The outfield is a question mark yet. Some of the pitchers played outfield last season, but when he switched players on the mound, he usually felt it in the outfield. He’s hoping the Stephen/Argyle addition will fix that problem as well.
“When they came in to pitch, that's where our outfield fell off,” Benson said. “We are going to have more depth there.”
Chase Boen caught last season, and according to his coach, is a good catcher. But Benson said that spot is open for now with nothing definite planned at this point.
“We do have some guys we’re looking at,” he added.