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 Mara Breeuwer, age 13, flew over the final jump before finishing first in her class at the Bike Duluth Festival mountain bike races at Spirit Mountain Sunday. Photo by John Gilbert.

Conflicts arise every time any politician speaks these days, but two worlds collide in sports for top high school athletes virtually every day, too. 

Consider the West Duluth Cubs, a junior American Legion team, which is facing a tough challenge in the eight-team sub-regional tournament.

Nowadays, the automatic routine of summer baseball has disappeared, with countless other things taking up players’ time. 

Johnny Scott is an example. Having made favorable impressions on scouts throughout the area as a winger on the Denfeld High School hockey team, which had a strong season but lacked depth, Scott made the easy transformation to the Denfeld baseball team, which surprised a lot of opponents, including Grand Rapids, the ultimate Section 7AA baseball champion.

Denfeld beat the traditionally powerful Thunderhawks in the double-elimination 7AA tournament, sending the top seed to the elimination round. Those two teams advanced to the final, where Grand Rapids would have to beat undefeated Denfeld twice to reach the state tournament.

“We had beaten Rapids twice during the season, too,” said Scott. “But we knew they had a good team. They beat us, and then they beat us again, 2-0 for the championship.”

Fortunately for kids still in high school, there is a chance to make up for such disappointments in the summertime, and the West Duluth Cubs are one avenue for that. 

Scott, who pitches and also plays shortstop and some third base, is hitting something like .540 for the season. He went 2-for-3 with a double last Friday and pitched 1-hit ball through the first three innings of an 8-1 victory against Hermantown, as the Cubs ended the regular season on a 4-game win streak.

It was 5-1 in the last of the sixth, when Lapcinski led off by blasting a double over the center-fielder’s head, scoring later to ignite a 3-run rally and finish off Hermantown with solid defense. 

But that one paled by comparison to this past Monday, when the Cubs needed a dramatic comeback to beat host Rosemount 11-10, with four runs in the last of the ninth. Ben Senich, Evan Lammi-Goorhouse and Riley Blix strung together singles to close the gap, and catcher Anna Hron singled home the tying run to make it 10-10.

Because the Cubs were last up, Rosemount’s infield moved in close for a play at the plate, but a pop fly behind second was called an infield fly, for an automatic out, even though the drawn-in infielders couldn’t catch the ball. The winning run scored on the play.

Johnny Scott started the game pitching, and hit a home run that Rosemount observers said was the longest ball ever seen hit on that field. It erased a 7-5 deficit in the last of the sixth in the game, which was scheduled for seven innings. The West Duluth Cubs had to wait to learn their foe for Wednesday’s second game, then they’ll play this weekend, with all games at Rosemount High School’s complex.

The “other world” will collide again this weekend, when Denfeld will join East, Hermantown, Cloquet, Proctor, Benilde-St. Margaret’s, Totino Grace and Northern Lakes — the team now coached by former East coach Mike Randolph — in the Proctor-Hermantown Northern Exposure summer hockey tournament. But Scott has yet another conflict. He said he is heading for a family reunion in Alabama this weekend.

Yet another attraction was held at Spirit Mountain last weekend, in the Bike Duluth Festival for downhill mountain bike racers. The event drew hundreds of entries in all age classifications, riding, jumping and literally flying all the way down the ski hill to the auxiliary facility located on Grand Avenue. For example, Mara Breeuwer, age 13, took first place in her age group with a best time of 2 minutes, 7.61 minutes. Times fluctuated greatly, with riders such as Austin Quale, 14, breaking 2-minutes with a run of 1:58.75 — but it was only good for 16th in his class.

As off-seasons go, never before in sports history has a team undergone the self-induced explosion faced by the nameless Professional Women’s Hockey League Minnesota franchise. 

The league, put together by Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Mark Walter and his wife, Kimbra, put the six teams together and helped organize everything. The league executives also, however, also retained power over all six teams — Minnesota, Boston, New York, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. 

They selected and forced Ken Klee into position as head coach, without any input or influence from Natalie Darwitz, a home-grown Minnesota superstar who will forever be known as an icon in the instant success and development of women’s hockey.

When Darwitz selected a mostly Minnesota team and got them organized to win the first “Walter Cup” championship, it could have been the easiest slam-dunk to promote increased interest and attendance in Year 2 for the Minnesota what’s-their-names. 

During the season, at times, Darwitz noticed some top players not at practice and, reportedly, when she went to the dressing room to see if they were injured, found they were enjoying a country club setting, choosing to relax and get massages instead of practicing. Those few players supported Klee, naturally, and led league officials to declare that there were disputes between Darwitz and Klee. So they fired Darwitz.

Klee, who always wanted to be general manager, made the draft picks immediately following that move, and he chose no Minnesotans — none. 

The team will no longer be led by Minnesota players, nor will it be followed and cheered by Minnesota-bred fans, who are extremely provincial when it comes to hockey. Never before has a team loaded the explosives and set the torch to the fuse to blow its very existence to kingdom come.

Natalie Darwitz is sure to land on her feet, despite the discouraging turn of events with her franchise excluding her from the artistic and phenomenally successful team she created. 

Maybe she should be hired as the new commissioner of the WCHA. She loves to coach, more than she enjoys the administrative part of the job. She just happens to be fantastic in both roles.