It may not have been artistic and it may have resembled a walkathon more than a baseball game, but Central Coach Sylvester Tucker was willing to win the semifinal victory over Proctor anyway he could.

The first-year coach settled for a 16-13 triumph at Wade Stadium after blowing a 13-run lead. The game, which lasted over three hours, featured 20 walks, 10 by each team.

"That was a weird one," Tucker said. "Bases-on-balls will kill you every time. That's been killing us all year. I think we were lucky because we bunched some hits together and their pitchers had lots of base-on-balls, too."

Nevertheless, the Trojans move into the finals today at Wade Stadium against Cloquet at 3 p.m.

The Trojans, 5-7, collected 12 hits, including two apiece from Dave McCuskey, Steve Clifford, Bill Lord and winning pitcher Rob Ek. Troy got seven of its hits in the first three innings to take a 5-1 lead. The Trojans scored seven times in the fourth on one hit.

Proctor, 7-6, had 10 hits, including four in the eight-run fifth inning. Matt Downs, Dan Norton and Mike Woods each had two hits for the Rails.

(Duluth News Tribune, May 24, 1979)