1. Minot               10-0

The Magicians 10-0 record is impressive, they’ve swept Dickinson, St. Mary, Mandan, Jamestown,  and Williston. Their offense has been amongst the best in the state led by Chandler Jacob, Kolton Larson and Wesley Johnson. They have a big week that includes a game against Bismarck and Century.

2. West Fargo     7-1

West Fargo has gone undefeated in the state (only loss Moorhead). They were impressive in their sweeps of Fargo Shanley and Davies. It’s easy to forget that West Fargo is the defending champs. They lost a lot of talent but have Kory Wolden, and Camran Bonneman back and they are carrying the Packers to a successful start.

3. Red River        7-2

The Riders dropped a pair to Fargo North but bounced back with a great pitching performance from Zach Mahoney. He pitched into the sixth inning against Shanley and struck out 11 while not yielding an earned run. Coach Mark Varriano believes their pitching will carry them, “If we could hit the ball at all we’ll be tough to beat. We have the pitching.”

4. Fargo North   8-3

Fargo North has been on the upswing this season, riding the arm and bat of Ian Schultz. They are the only team to have beaten Red River. North pitchers struck out 10 in their wins of 5-0, 3-1 over Red River.  North is the only Fargo team to beat Moorhead this season.

5. Bismarck         5-3

A couple of early season losses to Jamestown set back the Demons high hopes this year, but a couple close wins against Dickinson and a split with Mandan got some confidence back. They swept Century on Tuesday to get back to being mentioned among the best in the state.

1. Beulah                            9-0

Beulah has been every bit as good as advertised. They shut down Watford City to open the year in back to back games, then took out Kidder County, Hazen twice, Shiloh Christian twice, and Hettinger-Scranton twice on Tuesday. Last season they went 27-5, this year they might be even better. Bob Koch has this team on the right track, “At the plate we need to be aggressive in the zone and we have to be willing to take the walk at the plate. If we can get base runners on we have pretty good team speed that we definitely need to use. Defensively if we can make the routine play consistently and throw strikes we should be ok.”

2. Grafton                          4-0

Grafton finally got their season underway on May 2^nd. They swept Midway-Minto 3-2, 18-9. Then they got the bats in full swing as they took out North Border 10-0, and  20-8 on Monday.

3. Bishop Ryan                  5-0

Ryan moves up to the three spot with a sweep of Bottineau and beating Sawyer, then taking out Surrey twice.

4. Central Cass                  3-1

Split with Enderlin-MV, Swept LaMoure, Kindred-Richland

5. Velva-Drake-Anamoose 4-0

The bats were strong against Garrison-Max as they won 17-5. Coach Matt Weidler has plans to make this team a contender, “We are going to lean on Derek Fahy, Dixon Bauer, Brad Dean, Adam Dean, and Drew Effertz at the plate. Those guys are all returning starters who have got a lot of at-bats the past few years. We have a new catcher who moved here this fall, Ryan Bowman (So.), who replaces a three-year starter. He has had a very good spring training so to speak and we are expecting big things from him.”

Look for Derek Fahy, Drew Effertz and Brad Dean to man the rotation.

Notes

Despite a loss to North Star, I still believe Carrington is amongst the best in the state. They beat Central Prairie, Midkota, Dakota Prairie and North Star so far this year.

Shiloh Christian has a young team and have already lost four games but don't count them out.