 The Bemidji baseball team came this close to a state tournament birth just a season ago. Bemidji fell in the section 8-3 a championship to Little Falls by three ending their season short of their goal. But now the Jacks are back and primed to take what they believe is theirs. Though the Bemidji baseball team fell short of their goal of a state attorney birth a season ago, that doesn't mean expectations have changed for this year's group. We want to get to state tournament and win the game on target field, win a state championship, which is the goal for every year. We want to go out there and win every game and compete with the best in the state so we want to be back there. In fact not making the state tournament made this group that much hungrier. It was our year last year and it didn't happen so we want it to be our year this year. Last year we had some expectations but we weren't really sure where we fit in then all of a sudden at the end of the year we were right in the mix. This year we come in and the guys are expecting a little bit more and now they know what it takes and so it should feed right into it there should be no surprises. The Jacks lose nine players from a season ago but led by junior Otto Grimm and seniors Caleb Carlson and George Lockstercamp, they are confident in the group they have returning. There's nothing that's going to surprise them. We've played a really tough schedule last year. They had a great season for legions so those things are all in place and now we just have to go out and use that experience and act like we've been there before. Offense wasn't a problem for Bemidji last year. The team hit just on 300 clip but one area they felt they did need to address was their pitching. We thought we had a really strong pitching staff last year and we just didn't quite perform as well as we had hoped for and three of those top four are back so we're looking for a you know a little growth there. And if they can figure that out they believe there's nothing to stop them from making state. One through nine we're going to hit the ball well and do good things in the field and on the mound you know we'll need some tuning up at the beginning but after that we'll be we'll be set. We have tons of experience I feel like we're I feel like we're ready to take take the step down to the state tournament. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland public television.