Bears enter sectional on 12game win streak Zephyrs win 4 straight, finish 3rd in MEC

BY BRUCE STRAND SPORTS CONTRIBUTOR

White Bear Lake softball went 4-0 with three shutouts by Chloe Barber, including a no-hitter, and now head into Section 4AAAA with a 16-4 record and 12 straight wins.

The Bears, defending section champions, are seeded No. 2 behind Stillwater. They opened Tuesday against Roseville.

The tourney continues Wednesday and resumes next Monday.

“Our section is always tough and anyone can surprise you,” coach Jill Leverty said. “We need to be prepared and ready to grind it out against some good teams such as Stillwater, North St Paul, and Tartan.”

In the power-packed Suburban East, No. 3 ranked Stillwater was champion (16-2), followed

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by No. 4 Forest Lake (15-3), No. 6 White Bear Lake (14-4) and No. 7 Park (14-4). Barber threw her 14th career no-hitter, against Woodbury, a 2-0 win, with 13 strikeouts and two walks, out-dueling Norah Levenhagen (sixhitter, no walks). Emma Larson pitched a 9-4 win over Irondale (five hits, one walk, one earned run, four strikeouts). In nonconference games, Barber blanked Hopkins 5-0 (onehitter, 11 strikeouts) and Blaine 3-0 (14 strikeouts, four hits).

For the week, Chloe Barber was 7-for-12 with a three-run homer against Irondale and two-run double against Blaine, Heidi Barber 6-for-10 with four doubles, and Annika Olsen 4-for-14 with three runs and three RBI’s. Clare Griebel hit a solo homer against Blaine.

Bailey netted four goals and Preston West three. In the three games, Bailey had eight goals, seven assists and 13 ground balls; Mueller seven goals and five assists; West eight goals and five assists; Finn Karni four goals and 16 ground balls; Bryce Johnson four goals; Evan Vickstrom four goals; Ben Lockwood three goals and three assists; Griffin Ziccardi 11 ground balls; and Dylan Christopherson 11 ground balls.

Tennis

Boys Lacrosse

White Bear Lake finished conference play in third place after defeating East Ridge 14-5 at home, while also losing non-conference road games to Duluth 13-12 and Eagan 14-11. The Bears (7-4) closed the regular season against Wayzata. In the Suburban East, the top four were Stillwater 9-0, Woodbury 8-1, the Bears 7-2 and Cretin-Derham Hall 6-3. In the win over East Ridge, Mario

White Bear Lake’s dual meet season ended with a 7-0 win over North St. Paul and a 6-1 to Mounds View in Section 4AA. The Bears finished 7-8. Mounds View won six matches in straight sets. Colton Knutson averted the shutout with a 3-6, 6-4, 10-8 win at 4-singles. Winning against North were Will Fleming, Andrew Kolenich, Derrick Thomas and Knutson in singles, and Brock Moor/Travis Domschot, Grady Gallatin/Mason Voeller and Everett Moravec/Will Distad in doubles.

Baseball

White Bear Lake heads into playoffs