Sports

The Ely 9-and-10 year old All Star baseball team lost one but won two last weekend, good enough to move on in MN District 4 Little League play. <BR><BR>All games were played at Garrett Park in Hibbing.<BR><BR>Ely won its first game 6-2 against a favored Deer River team. Deer River’s pitching was good, walking only one and allowing only seven hits through six innings.<BR><BR>Ely squeezed out six runs, with key RBIs coming from Billy Foy with three hits and Michael Freeman who had two hits. Sean Fisher cut Deer River a new road home with an inside the park home-run in the top of the sixth.<BR><BR>Nick Mathews pitched for Ely and had an awesome performance. He scattered just three hits and tallied 14 strike-outs for the win.<BR><BR>The hometown favorite, Hibbing, topped the Elyites Saturday morning 3-1 in a really tight contest. Pitching for Ely, Wes Snyder had nine strikeouts and allowed only three hits.

The 2004 Ely American Legion baseball team now has its own place in local baseball history.<BR><BR>Ely is unbeaten in 18 games, easily the best start in program history, and the squad now has won more consecutive games - 19 - than any other Ely Legion squad.<BR><BR>Ely’s 13-3 win over Virginia in the Midsummer Classic (see related story) gave the club its program-best 17th consecutive win.<BR><BR>Wednesday night at Brookston, Ely pounded its hosts 18-3 in five innings to raise its season record to 18-0 and extend the team win streak to 19 games, dating back to the third-place game in last year’s state tournament.<BR><BR>Post 248 goes to Cloquet today in the midst of a busy swing to end the regular season.

Two wins in three games allowed Ely to stay alive going into the second weekend of the Junior League Baseball District Tournament.<BR><BR>After an opening round victory over Deer River at Veterans Memorial Field, Hibbing sent Ely’s 13-and-14-year-olds into the losers’ bracket with a 6-4 extra inning decision<BR><BR>Ely then pounced on International Falls, winning the July 10 contest 10-6 and assuring itself of no worse than a fourth-place finish in the eight-team tournament.<BR><BR>Play resumed over the weekend in Ely, with Grand Rapids and Hibbing the two remaining unbeaten teams in the tournament and Ely and Greenway tagged with one loss.<BR><BR>Ely, coached by Clarence Jordan and Bill Henning, was set to take on Greenway at 2:30 Saturday, and needed four consecutive wins to take the tournament title.

With just two weeks left in the regular season and tournament play fast approaching, Ely’s VFW baseball team is looking to shore up its defense.<BR><BR>Ely is over the .500 mark at 11-10 heading into today’s Border Area doubleheader with Virginia (11 a.m., Veterans Memorial Field), but defensive woes have cost the team several other games and may be the only thing that’s holding it back from becoming a force in the Eighth District.<BR><BR>Defensive improvement is the focus for Post 2717 as it gears up for the stretch run.<BR><BR>“It seems like one bad inning in each game is killing us,” said Ely Head Coach Jim Wittrup. “Our pitchers have low ERAs but we seem to make five errors a game with four run inning.

Cory Lassi showed off his power on the Fourth of July and won Ely’s first Home Run Derby.<BR><BR>Lassi, a 2004 graduate of Ely Memorial High School and a member of Ely’s American Legion baseball team, topped a field of more than 30 participants - including Legion teammate and Minnesota high school baseball home run king Josh Mathson.<BR><BR>In the final round, Lassi had 12 points to Mathson’s 11.<BR><BR>Lassi, Mathson, Tim Scott, Josh Weckman and Ely high school baseball coach Frank Ivancich advanced to the finals.<BR><BR>The competition was scored on a points system, with points awarded for balls that reach a marked off area in the outfield, and for balls that clear the fence.<BR><BR>Mathson actually had the most home runs in the event, including three in the first round and one in the finals, but Lassi had four three-point hits in the finals while Mathson had a homer (five points) and two three-pointers.<BR><BR&

An avid golfer, Ely business owner Steve Piragis has played countless rounds since taking up the game more than 30 years ago.<BR><BR>But there was something special about Piragis’ June 20 trip to the brand-new Wilderness Course at Fortune Bay.<BR><BR>That’s when the 52-year-old recorded his first hole-in-one.<BR><BR>It came on the par-3, seventh hole at the course next to Lake Vermilion near Tower.<BR><BR>“All I could do is stand there and laugh,” Piragis recalled last week. “I’ve played a thousand par-3s, and finally one goes in.”<BR><BR>Piragis, who golfs about twice a week, used a nine-iron on the 156-yard hole and fired from the back tees at the course.<BR><BR>“The wind was about 20 miles an hour and steady right to left,” said Piragis.

Ely’s American Legion baseball team maintained its perfect record last week, and inched closer to making Ely baseball history in the process.<BR><BR>Thursday’s 5-1 win over Marble gave Post 248 a perfect 14-0 mark for the summer, and a 15-game streak that extends back to last year’s state tournament third-place game.<BR><BR>And while the 2004 club already is off to the best start in Ely Legion history, it needs one more win to tie and two to break the program record for consecutive wins.

Another weekend, another tournament championship for Ely’s American Legion baseball team.<BR><BR>One week after winning Virginia’s Land of the Loon Tournament, Post 248 dominated its own tournament at Veterans Memorial Field.<BR><BR>Ely won four straight games, outscoring its competition by a combined margin of 37-13 to claim the first-place trophy at the 17th annual Ely Legion Classic.<BR><BR>Lefty Tim Scott fanned 11 batters as Ely drilled St. Charles 11-1 in the June 25 tournament opener. The next day, Post 248 picked up its most impressive win of the tournament, a 10-4 decision over defending Classic champion Sartell.<BR><BR>Victories over Proctor (10-4) and St. Charles (6-4) followed and Ely won the event for the third time in four years.<BR><BR>“To win this tournament any year is a heck of an accomplishment,” said Ely Head Coach Tom Coombe.

The large sign attached to the grandstand at Veterans Memorial Field, the one dubbing Ely as “Baseball Tourney Town USA,” certainly seems appropriate this summer.<BR><BR>The Ely baseball complex hosted American Legion and VFW tournaments the last two weekends, and the facility will be a hub of activity again this weekend, as two separate tournaments take place.<BR><BR>Friday and Saturday, Ely will host 13-and-14-year-olds from around the region as the Minnesota Fourth District Junior League Playoffs begin.<BR><BR>And once the junior teams clear the field, American Legion teams will step right in.<BR><BR>Ely’s Midsummer Legion Classic also is set for this weekend, with the tournament moving over to Ely on Sunday after three games Saturday at Soudan.<BR><BR>This weekend’s contests are part of one of the busiest summers yet at Veterans Memorial Field.<BR><BR>From June 29 through Aug.

The victories just keep piling up for Ely’s American Legion baseball team.<BR><BR>Post 248 maintained its perfect record last week with a pair of lopsided Eighth District Division II routs, running its season-opening win streak to 11 games.<BR><BR>Josh Mathson was a one-man wrecking crew Monday at Chisholm, smashing three home runs, finishing with eight runs batted in and picking up the pitching win as Ely rolled 18-5 in six innings.<BR><BR>Wednesday, both Mathson and Thom hit home runs and Tim Scott fanned 10 batters in a 15-5 triumph over district rival Nashwauk-Keewatin.<BR><BR>Ely, which is at Hibbing today for a doubleheader, needs two more wins to tie the record-setting 2001 Legion squad, which won 13 straight games to start the season.<BR><BR>Last week’s victories put Ely in first place in the district standings and may have cemented the local team’s standing as the favorite for a second straight district title and s