Bugliosi Wood Bat Classic kicks off today

HIBBING—If the Hibbing High School baseball team has a springboard into the postseason, it starts today at Al Nyberg Field.

That’s because the Mike Bugliosi Wood Bat Classic begins with Roseau playing Cloquet at 4:30 p.m., then the Bluejackets take on Proctor, beginning at 7 p.m.

On Saturday, Hibbing will play Roseau at 10 a.m., followed by the Rams and Proctor at 12:30 p.m. Cloquet and Proctor play at 3 p.m., then Hibbing takes on Cloquet at 5:30 p.m.

Junior varsity games will be held at Vic Power Field.

Hibbing is 6-6 on the season, and the Bluejackets are finally starting to kick things into gear.

“We’ve been talking about trying to play our best baseball, which is always our goal, toward the end of the season,” Hibbing coach Jay Wetzel said. “We’re getting there. We’re playing good baseball.

“Our starting pitchers have been getting deeper into the game recently. Defensively, we’re making the plays we need to. Offensively, we’re coming around a bit. That was an Achillie’s heel for us early.”

Part of that was due to not getting enough at bats.

“That matters, and now that we’re up to 12 games, we’re seeing better approaches,” Wetzel said. “We’re still not there yet, but we’ve won a handful of games the last couple of times we’ve been out.”

Getting swings won’t be a problem this tourney with three games in two days.

“We get three in two days, then next week, we’ll get three more on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,” Wetzel said. “It’s a good way for us to get ourselves rolling into the playoffs, but too many where we’ll be ragged going in.

“That’s the balance as to how many games you want to slam in. We had the opportunity to play a fifth game this week, but we said, ‘That’s not a great idea. Similarly, we had the opportunity to go four in five days next week.

“There’s a balance in there. We had the chance to practice outdoors two days in a row, which was huge for us. When we were done with those two days we still had things that we can and need to work on out there.”

The Wood Bat Classic has been around for at least three decades.

Wetzel likes it because of the ability to use the wood bats.

“It’s an opportunity for a change in style of play,” he said. “Using the wood bats, it’s just like our BB-core bats that are designed to function like a wood bat for player safety. If you square one up with a wood bat, it’s going to go.

“Over the years, we’ve seen multiple home runs hit in this tournament where you would think that’s not the case.”

There is a flip side to that, however.

“If you get jammed, if you get one off the end of the barrel, you can not only break a bat, but it’s weak contact,” Wetzel said. “It helps our pitching staff when we hammer home, throwing it over the plate and let the defense work.

“It helps emphasize that. It gives us a chance to be aggressive in terms of throwing strikes. In piling three games into two games, it also gives us a chance to run different lineups. It forces us to get some different looks, to get some different guys on the mound. That’s a nice aspect to the tournament.”

Last year, the Bluejackets went 2-1 in the tournament and through tiebreaker rules, Hibbing won its own tournament.

It’s never easy to win this tournament.

“Roseau has been tough the last few years, especially with their state run to the finals two years ago,” Wetzel said. “Cloquet Is always tough. They’re a section opponent as is Proctor.

“What you end up seeing is nobody runs the table and wins three games. There’s a lot of 2-1s, 1-2s and a lot of close games. It’s who’s playing clean baseball. Are you making errors? Are you walking guys? Those teams don’t generally win.”

Even with the wood bats, don’t expect low-scoring games.

“Two years ago we had football scores, where there was a 21-14 game to start off the tournament,” Wetzel said. “That put us behind schedule because it was a massively long game.

“We’d prefer the 1-0, 2-1 kind of efficient games, but offensively, you can put up big numbers if you’re swinging well.”