Northwoods Legion is state-bound as regional champion

Northwoods Legion player Aiden Minx takes a big rip at a pitch during a 9-2 win over Medford in the first game of the AA Wisconsin Legion regional tournament in Three Lakes last Thursday.

Staff Photos By JACOB HEID

Shortstop Jonah Will makes an off-balance throw over to first to get an out.

Posted Tuesday, July 28, 2026 12:35 pm

By Jacob Heid
Sports Editor

The Northwoods Legion Baseball team out of Three Lakes won its AA Wisconsin Legion regional at Don Burnside Park in Three Lakes this weekend, advancing them to the state tournament in Rice Lake starting later this week. The team heads to state with a 12-4 record. This is the first state appearance for the Northwoods Legion team in program history.

After Minocqua dropped out of the regional tournament, the field dropped to Northwoods, Medford and Merrill.

Game one on July 24 went in favor of Northwoods, who beat Medford 9-2.

Things got rolling for both offenses early, pleasing a decent-sized crowd who came to support. Northwoods struck first and took an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first.

Medford responded with two runs in the top of the second and leapfrogged Northwoods to hold a 2-1 advantage for a few innings. Both starting pitchers settled down between then and the bottom of the fourth, where Northwoods broke the game open with a seven-run inning to make it an 8-2 game. Another run came across in the fifth to close out the scoring.

Aiden Minx pitched six strong innings for Northwoods. Sam Koshuta came in and closed the door in the seventh.

The hometown team then waited until Friday night to face Merrill, where Northwoods won 8-7 with a walk-off in the bottom of the seventh inning. That eliminated Merrill from tournament play after it lost to Medford in its first game of the day.

That led to Medford and Northwoods facing off once again for the regional championship Saturday afternoon. Medford got its redemption in game one and took down Northwoods 7-5.

Northwoods jumped out quickly to a 9-0 first-inning lead in game two and never looked back in a 12-5 regional-clinching victory.

The team now looks ahead to the Legion state tournament later this week. The AA state tournament is held at First National Bank of River Falls Field this Friday, July 31, and will run through Tuesday, Aug. 4. Northwoods’ first game is against New Richmond this Friday, July 31, at 2:30 p.m. The winner of that game will advance to play on Saturday at 5 p.m., and the loser will play Saturday at 12 p.m.