Baseball Tournament begins

The State high school baseball tournament opens today in Marshalltown and Carroll. Marshalltown hosts the class 2A quarterfinals and the opener at noon pits third-ranked Carlisle against Sergeant Bluff-Luton. Carlisle coach Dave Dirks has a young team but nearly all of them played on last year’s tournament team that lost in the opening round. The bats have carried Carlisle this season as the Wildcats have tallied 51 home runs so far. He says his guys have been able to hit throughout the year, and they haven’t hit many sacrifices. Dirks says his team will have its hands full against Sergeant Bluff-Luton and pitcher Jon Nelson, who has an 11-1 record on the mound.