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The Chisago Lakes Cubs U12 traveling baseball team is having a successful season in the Gopher State Baseball League (GSBL). Their league record so far is 7-4-2 and their overall record, including tournaments, is 11-6-2.

Mike Lizotte is in his first year as head coach of this group of players. “This season, we’re trying to develop skills and instill the concept of team play into the players,” said Lizotte. “We’re focusing on defense first. We’ve improved a lot since the beginning of the season on being able to mentally stay in games. That way, the kids don’t get down on themselves when they get behind. They recognize that they always have a chance to catch up. That’s the great thing about baseball––there’s no time limit.

Offensively, we’re trying to teach the players to become better contact hitters, rather than swinging as hard as they can all the time. By making contact consistently, they put the ball in play and force the other team to make a play versus making it easy for them to get us out on strikeouts and popups.”

Lizotte then talked a little bit about his pitching. “Our pitching has been consistent this season,” he said. “Not giving up a lot of walks has kept us out of trouble and allowed us to avoid letting the other team have big innings. We’ve only had a couple of big innings against us all season.”

Lizotte is an enthusiastic coach. He doesn’t belittle his players when they make a mistake, but discusses with them later what they did and how they can do it better next time. He also is quick to praise players when they make a positive play during a game. Based on play at a recent tournament, this team seems to be having a lot of fun.

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