Rochester, Minn (August 12th, 2013)–The 2013 Northwoods League Playoffs are set to begin on Monday night as the top teams from each division square off.
In the South Divisional playoffs, the Lakeshore Chinooks will host the first-half champion Madison Mallards in game one at 6:35 in Mequon. The Chinooks beat out the Mallards by three games on their overall record, so Lakeshore will have home field.
Offensively, the Chinooks are led by first baseman Ryan Krill (Michigan State). Krill was a star for Lakeshore during the regular season with his .282 batting average and .865 OPS. Krill’s game comes with some pop as he launched seven home runs and drove in 39 runs.
The Mallards will try to attack Tyler Thicke (UW-Milwaukee) and the rest of the Lakeshore pitching staff with their strong offense. Madison is led by slugger Drew Weeks (North Florida) who finished with a .310 average and 67 runs driven in.
Game one’s match up will be Joe Greenfield (Eastern Illinois) for Lakeshore and Luke Staub (George Washington) for Madison.
In the North Divisional playoffs, the Waterloo Bucks will begin their quest for a league championship after finishing with a league-record 51 wins. The Bucks will look to get things done behind John Ziznewski (Long Island) who finished the year with a .341 average, 25 walks, and 42 runs scored.
Faced with the tall task of beating Waterloo are the Duluth Huskies. The Huskies come in red hot as they won seven straight games heading into the playoffs. Clay Chapman (Florida Southern) will undoubtedly have a say in the outcome of the series as he will look to use his 8.24 K/9 rate and his sub-6 H/9 rate to baffle Waterloo hitters.
The game one pitching match up features Clay Chapman for Duluth and Drasen Johnson (Illinois) for Waterloo and will start at 6:35 in Duluth.
The winner from each divisional playoff will play each other for the Northwoods League Championship in the Summer Collegiate World Series. Game one will be on Thursday, Aug. 15, and will be a best-of-three series.
The Northwoods League has more teams, plays more games, and draws more fans than any other Summer Collegiate Baseball League in North America. The League has 16 teams in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, and Ontario.