Sports

Ely’s VFW baseball team should get a chance to see how it matches up with some of the best teams in the area during this weekend’s six-team Ely VFW Classic.<BR><BR>The two-day event kicks off Friday and includes 12 games - eight at Ely’s Veterans Memorial Field and four more in Soudan at Legion Field.<BR><BR>Host Ely meets Nashwauk-Keewatin at 12:30 p.m. Friday and goes under the lights for an 8 p.m. game with Hermantown that evening. On Saturday, Ely squares off against Silver Bay (noon) and Duluth East (7:30 p.m.)<BR><BR>Babbitt-Embarrass-Soudan-Tower is also in the tournament.<BR><BR>A champion will be determined by best overall record, with head-to-head competition and runs allowed being used to break ties.<BR><BR>Admission for tournament games is $4 per day.<BR><BR>VFW baseball is for players age 16 and under.<BR><BR>• A complete tournament schedule can be found in the scoreboard section.

Ely’s American Legion baseball team couldn’t have asked for a much better start to the 2004 season.<BR><BR>Three strong pitching performances, combined with excellent defense and some timely hitting gave Post 248 three wins and a first-place finish at Virginia’s Land of the Loon Invitational.<BR><BR>After an easy 16-0 drubbing of Proctor in the opening round, Ely knocked off tournament host Virginia and Eighth District Division I favorite Grand Rapids in successive games, claiming the championship trophy in Virginia for the second time in four years.<BR><BR>Ely downed Virginia 8-5 in a June 19 semifinal contest, and the championship game included a comeback from a 5-2 deficit and a 6-5 win over Grand Rapids.<BR><BR>Ely, which is gunning for its second straight district Division II crown, knocked off three Division I teams on the way to the title, including Virginia and Grand Rapids teams that are likely to lead the pack in Division I.&

Started more than a decade ago to give Ely’s American Legion baseball team some exposure to competition from outside the area, the Ely Legion Classic has since evolved into one of the top tournaments in northern Minnesota.<BR><BR>The 17th annual event, now sponsored by the Ely Chamber of Commerce, kicks off this weekend and brings top-flight talent from both northern Minnesota and beyond.<BR><BR>But while previous Legion Classics have included as many as nine teams, this year’s event is much smaller in size.<BR><BR>Late withdrawals by several 2003 entrants including one - Duluth Central - that won’t field a team this year, has left the 2004 event with only four teams.<BR><BR>Host Ely will be joined by Legion Classic mainstay Sartell and two first-time entrants: Proctor and St. Charles.<BR><BR>The action begins at 5:30 p.m. Friday, with host Ely starting its four-game slate at 8 p.m. against Sartell.

Ely’s VFW baseball team got a pair of dominant pitching performances Tuesday night, resulting in a season-opening sweep of Babbitt-Embarrass-Soudan-Tower.<BR><BR>Jordan Richards fired a no-hitter as Ely downed BEST 7-1 in the second game of the twinbill at Veterans Memorial Field.<BR><BR>In the opener, Paul Starkovich allowed just two hits in a 9-3 Ely win.<BR><BR>With all but one starter back and as many as eight 16-year-olds in the lineup, Ely had little resemblance to the 2003 club that went 4-20. In the span of three-and-a-half hours, Post 2717 got off to a perfect start and got halfway to matching its win total from the previous summer.<BR><BR>Ely did it with pitching.<BR><BR>Starkovich, who helped Ely’s high school B-squad team to a solid spring, gave up two unearned runs in the first but settled down the rest of the way.

Ely's American Legion baseball team displayed its pitching depth in its season-opener: a 6-1 victory at Marble last Monday night.<BR><BR>Post 248's top three returning pitchers - Josh Mathson, Tim Scott and Josh Weckman - combined on a three-hitter and were in command throughout the contest.<BR><BR>Mathson worked the first three innings. Scott came on for the next three and Weckman pitched the seventh.<BR><BR>They allowed one hit each and combined to strike nine Marble batters, including two straight 'Ks' by Weckman to end the game.<BR><BR>"We wanted to get all three of those guys some work and I thought they were all sharp," said Ely Head Coach Tom Coombe.

From the opening meet of the season all the way through to the state competition at Blaine, Ely’s Steve Milkovich just kept getting better and better and better.<BR><BR>The result was the sophomore’s first state appearance and an impressive fourth-place finish in the triple jump at the Class A championships, held June 12 at the National Sports Center.<BR><BR>Milkovich set a school record at the Section 7A meet with a jump of over 41 feet, but just eight days later he shattered that mark by over a foot, finishing at 42 feet, five inches.<BR><BR>“He went and set the school record the week before and then he goes and sets it again by a foot and an inch farther,” said Ely Head Coach Darren Visser.

The return of three top pitchers gives Ely’s American Legion baseball team three good reasons to be optimistic about the 2004 season, which starts today with a 7 p.m.

Getting to the state high school track meet, especially when one does it on a relay with seniors who won’t be back next year, can aptly be called a once-in-a-lifetime experience.<BR><BR>A month-long trip to Germany with high school classmates fits the same description.<BR><BR>But what happens when one once-in-a-lifetime experience conflicts with another?<BR><BR>That’s the dilemma that faced Ely junior Jenna Klein last week.<BR><BR>On June 4, Klein joined teammates Raychal Zupancich, Julie Anderson and Casey Sovil on a 3,200 meter relay team that finished second at the Section 7A meet in Duluth and earned a spot in the state meet, set for June 10 at Blaine.<BR><BR>But there was one, not so small, catch.<BR><BR>On Tuesday, Klein was scheduled to depart with more than a dozen Ely classmates for Germany, in the once-every-two-years tour of Europe coordinated by German instructor Bob Braff.<BR><BR>Despite

At meet after meet this spring, Ely sophomore Steve Milkovich stood out in the crowd.<BR><BR>The Section 7A competition at Duluth was no different, as the Ely athlete recorded top-five finishes in three events and landed a berth in the state meet in the triple jump.<BR><BR>Milkovich had a leap of 41 feet, four inches, good enough for second place in the triple jump and a spot in Saturday’s State Class A competition in Blaine.<BR><BR>In third place after the preliminaries, Milkovich needed a clutch jump to advance. That’s exactly what he got.<BR><BR>“He went into the finals in third place by an inch, and this was his last jump and he just nailed it,” said Ely Head Coach Darren Visser.

Ely’s high school girls track team knew that it would take an extraordinary performance to advance one or more of its athletes to the state meet.<BR><BR>But an extraordinary performance was exactly what the Timberwolves got out of their 3,200 meter relay team, which shaved over 20 seconds off its season-best time, finished second overall at the June 4 Section 7AA meet in Duluth and qualified for state competition by time standard.<BR><BR>Seniors Julie Anderson and Raychal Zupancich, junior Jenna Klein and ninth-grader Casey Sovil formed the relay team, which led for three-fourths of the race but fell to second in the final leg, completing the course in 9:49.22.<BR><BR>“To better our time by almost 22 seconds was just phenomenal,” said Ely Head Coach Todd Hohenstein. “We thought going into the section meet that basically we had to take first to go to state.