Two Harbors tops Cook County, snaps late-spring skid at home

Two Harbors got the kind of home result Lake County has been waiting for: a 5-4 baseball win over Cook County on May 11 that snapped the Agates' skid and delivered their first victory since late April. The win mattered because the Agates had been pushed hard by a May 5 doubleheader at Silver Bay, then held down by Barnum, 6-0, and Moose Lake-Willow River, 16-0, on May 8, leaving little margin as the spring schedule tightened.

That rivalry has been one of the North Shore's most competitive. Silver Bay swept Two Harbors 24-14 and 19-1 on May 5 and moved to 9-2, a mark that showed how quickly the Mariners were separating themselves from the pack. Silver Bay had already been 7-2 after beating St. John's Prep, 8-5, on May 2 at Dick Putz Field in St. Cloud, and the Mariners were lined up for Barnum on May 12, McGregor on May 15 and a tournament in Ely later that day. In an earlier look at the matchup, Ward Wallin called a Silver Bay-Two Harbors game "a dandy with two solid starting pitchers," and Adam Labat said sophomore Garren Tikkanen was doing "a fantastic job" on the mound with an ERA around 1.

Cook County was trying to steady itself after an 11-3 loss to Mesabi East on May 8 and the 5-4 setback to Two Harbors on May 11, with North Woods next on May 14. The Vikings' softball team had already broken through for its first win of the season by beating Stella Maris Academy 19-3 on May 4, but the next week showed how steep the climb remained against Lake County's top programs.

Softball underscored the same divide. Two Harbors beat Cook County 26-3 and 13-1 on May 6, then dropped a 6-5 decision to Mesabi East on May 8 before Silver Bay pulled away later that day, 18-6. The Mariners kept rolling with a 4-2 win over Ely on May 5, the 18-6 victory over Two Harbors, and a 14-2 win over Cook County on May 11. Silver Bay was 16-1 and ranked No. 2, and coach Mike Guzzo had pointed back to program history, including a 25-win season and a second-place state finish about 20 years ago, as the standard still in front of his team.

The spring record book also took a hit at the Matt Kero Memorial Invite on May 8, where Tommy DeChantal, Will Fransen, Joshua Maxwell and Carter Nelson ran 3:29.36 in the 4x400 relay. That time broke Two Harbors' previous school record of 3:30.84 from 2025 and, according to the team’s Facebook page, topped a converted 1977 4x440-yard mark of 3:30.1. Fifteen teams were at the meet, including Silver Bay and Cook County, and the event raised money for the Matt Kero Scholarship Fund. The featured 1600 meters honors Matt Kero, a Denfeld student and track team member who died unexpectedly in 2011, giving the relay record a meaning that went beyond the stopwatch.