Amateur baseball playoffs to begin Wednesday

The amateur baseball regular season has concluded, and playoff action is scheduled to begin this week.

In Sunday play, it was: Jackson 5, Milroy 3; Hadley 10, Lakefield 0; Fairmont 3, Fox Lake 1; Milroy 7, Heron Lake 3, and Luverne 17, Ruthton 1.

The Worthington Cubs completed the regular season with an overall record of 6-12 and earned the fourth seed out of the Gopher League. They’ll begin a three-game series with Heron Lake, the No. 5 seed from the First Nite League, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Worthington Middle School Field. Game two in the series is scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday in Heron Lake and game three – if necessary – will be at 2 p.m. Sunday in Worthington.

Luverne finished the regular season with an 18-1 overall record and in first place in the Gopher League. Milroy took second place with a league mark of 13-4; both of those teams have first-round byes and will next compete in the eight-team Region 13C playoffs. First-round byes also to First Nite League champion Windom, which finished league play with a mark of 16-3, and Fairmont.

Other best-of-three playoff series getting underway Wednesday include Jackson vs. Pipestone, Lakefield vs. Ruthton and Hadley vs. Fox Lake. Winners of these series and the Worthington-Heron Lake series, along with the four teams receiving byes this week, will be seeded next week for best-of-three series that will decide the Gopher and First Nite League’s state tournament qualifiers. This year’s 100th Minnesota Baseball Association state tournament will be hosted in Dassel, Delano and Litchfield.