The state baseball tournament kicks off Wednesday with four classes taking place across four sites.

Class 4A will be at CHS Field in St. Paul, while the next two Class 3A rounds will be in Jordan. Class 2A and Class A are both in St. Cloud but at separate fields.

Quarterfinals are Wednesday, with semifinals on Thursday. All four classes convene at Target Field on Saturday for the state title rounds.

Here is a look at the East Metro teams in action on the diamond this week.

Class 4A

Cretin-Derham Hall

The perennial power of old is finally back at state, 18 years after its most recent state tournament appearance.

The Raiders (20-4) have a deep pitching staff highlighted by Davon Castro, who is 5-1 with a 1.66 earned run average this season. Their lineup is also flush with weapons, with five guys hitting north of .410 and Davis Fleming (five homers) and Jack Drieman (four) capable of leaving the yard at a moment’s notice.

The tournament’s top seed will meet eighth-seeded Rosemount at 4:30 p.m. at CHS Field.

Rosemount

If you didn’t expect the Irish to be here, well, you’re not alone. Rosemount (13-11) lost six of its first seven games this spring and entered sections two games below .500. But the Irish offense has come alive in the postseason, with Rosemount scoring seven-plus runs in every section bout.

Gavin Hartley and Joseph Timmerman give Rosemount a pitching rotation capable of making noise this week in St. Paul. Hartley is Rosemount’s engine, sporting a 5-1 record on the bump while batting .389 with three homers.

Class 3A

Mahtomedi

The third-seeded Zephyrs (16-7) have become synonymous with the state baseball tournament. With Tuesday’s quarterfinal duel with sixth-seeded Simley at noon in Jordan, Mahtomedi will have appeared in 10 of the past 11 state tournaments.

The Zephyrs have reached the state final five times since 2016; that includes runner-up finishes in each of the past two editions. They’d like to climb the final rung this week. Helping them potentially do so? Ace pitcher Ethan Felling. The senior lefty is a Gophers commit.

Simley

The Spartans (15-7) ride into the state baseball tournament for the first time in program history after not allowing a single run over their final three section tournament games.

Caiden Peters and Wyatt Seelhammer give the Spartans a potent 1-2 punch on the mound, and Brendan Koester is another reliable option on the staff.

All three of those pitchers also hit better than .340 at the dish, but it’s Joe Anderson who sparks the Spartans offense. He has hit nearly .450 this spring.

Class 2A

Concordia Academy

The No. 8 seed in Class 2A faces a tall order against top-seeded Duluth Marshall in its 3:30 p.m. start Wednesday in St. Cloud, but the Beacons aren’t to be counted out. They lost four games in a row in May, with three of the defeats coming by 10-plus runs, yet hit their stride just in time for sections to make a fun run to the state tournament.

Tuesday didn’t mark Stillwater’s best start to a game this season. The third-seeded Ponies trailed Maple Grove 4-3 early in the second quarter of the state lacrosse quarterfinals in Chaska.

The third frame was a goalfest between the two teams that left Stillwater leading 12-10 with one stanza to play.

But all was well that ended well, as Stillwater shut out the No. 6 seed in the final frame to secure a 16-10 victory.

“I think we’re pretty confident because we understand that you’re not always going to win every game by 10 goals,” senior attacker Madylyn Richert said. “It’s state. Every team here is good, it’s going to be close at certain points. One goal, one stop, everything around the field, that all builds up to a win.”

The Ponies will meet Park in the semifinals at 3 p.m. Thursday in Eden Prairie.

It figures that a slow start wouldn’t linger for a perennial state participant such as Stillwater. But the response Tuesday was impressive given this is an unusually young Ponies team. Stillwater features just three seniors, but those three continue to step up in a big way.

Richert scored six goals, Gretchen Wenner scored twice and Rayna Malmberg had a goal and three assists. They led with the play, but also their voices, as they delivered prominent messages in the postgame pep talk.

“I think just coming in, we all realized everyone had to step up (this season),” said Richert, one of few returning starters from a 2024 team that graduated 11 seniors. “The younger girls were going to play, and (it was) teaching them the ropes of what works, what doesn’t and just building us as a team and a family.”

That family spent that postgame chat highlighting the contributions they witnessed players throughout the roster in the victory, big and small. Stillwater coach Carly Fedorowski said it’s been “fun to watch” her team’s evolution this spring.

“Everyone plays together, and that’s important,” she said. “Our senior class of three is awesome. They keep leading, and they’ve done a great job.”

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By BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press

The images of cars set ablaze, protesters tossing rocks at police and officers firing nonlethal rounds and tear gas at protesters hearkens back to the last time a president sent the National Guard to respond to violence on Los Angeles streets.

But the unrest during several days of protests over immigration enforcement is far different in scale from the 1992 riots that followed the acquittal of white police officers who were videotaped beating Black motorist Rodney King.

FILE – In this April 30, 1992 file photo, a Los Angeles police officer takes aim at a looter in a market at Alvarado and Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles during the second night of rioting in the city. (AP Photo/John Gaps III, File)

President George H.W. Bush used the Insurrection Act to call in the National Guard after requests from Mayor Tom Bradley and Gov. Pete Wilson. After the current protests began Friday over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of 4,100 National Guard troops and 700 Marines despite strident opposition from Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Trump cited a legal provision to mobilize federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday saying Trump had overstepped his authority.

FILE – In this April 30, 1992 file photo, smoke rises from a shopping center burned by rioters in Los Angeles after four police officers had been acquitted of the 1991 beating of motorist Rodney King. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

Outrage over the verdicts on April 29, 1992 led to nearly a week of widespread violence that was one of the deadliest riots in American history. Hundreds of businesses were looted. Entire blocks of homes and stores were torched. More than 60 people died in shootings and other violence, mostly in South Los Angeles, an area with a heavily Black population at the time.

Unlike the 1992 riots, protests have mainly been peaceful and been confined to a roughly five-block stretch of downtown LA, a tiny patch in the sprawling city of nearly 4 million people. No one has died. There’s been vandalism and some cars set on fire but no homes or buildings have burned.

FILE – A California Highway Patrol officer stands guard at Ninth Street and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles as smoke rises from a fire further down the street, April 30, 1992. (AP Photo/David Longstreath, file)

At least 50 people have been arrested for everything from failing to follow orders to leave to looting, assault on a police officer and attempted murder for tossing a Molotov cocktail.

Several officers have had minor injuries and protesters and some journalists have been struck by some of the more than 600 rubber bullets and other “less-lethal” munitions fired by police.

The 1992 uprising took many by surprise, including the Los Angeles Police Department, but the King verdict was a catalyst for racial tensions that had been building in the city for years.

In addition to frustration with their treatment by police, some directed their anger at Korean merchants who owned many of the local stores. Black residents felt the owners treated them more like shoplifters than shoppers. As looting and fires spread toward Koreatown, some merchants protected their stores with shotguns and rifles.

FILE – In this April 29, 1992 file photo, demonstrators protest the verdict in the Rodney King beating case in front of the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

By MELISSA GOLDIN, Associated Press

As demonstrations in Los Angeles over immigration raids unfolded in recent days, social media users falsely cited a Craigslist ad as evidence that protesters had been paid to participate.

“We are forming a select team of THE TOUGHEST dudes in the area,” the ad, which is no longer live, read. “This unit will be activated only when the situation demands it — BUT YOU GET PAID EVERY WEEK NO MATTER WHAT. high-pressure, high-risk, no room for hesitation. We need individuals who do not break, panic, or fold under stress and are basically kickass dudes.” It offered $6,500-$12,500 in compensation per week.

Protesters gather near the metropolitan detention center Monday, June 9, 2025, in downtown Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

But the ad was a prank, it is not related to the Los Angeles protests.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: A Craigslist ad seeking “the toughest badasses in the city” is proof that Los Angeles demonstrations over immigration raids are made up of paid protesters.

THE FACTS: This is false. The ad, which appeared in Craigslist’s Los Angeles section for general labor jobs, was bait for a prank show and had nothing to do with the protests in Los Angeles, the ad’s creator told The Associated Press. It was posted on Thursday, the day before the protests began. In a livestreamed episode on Friday, the show’s hosts called and spoke with people who responded to the ad.

“I literally had no idea it was ever going to be connected to the riots. It was a really weird coincidence,” said Joey LaFleur, who posted the ad on Craigslist.

The ad was developed as part of a new prank show called “Goofcon1,” said LaFleur, who hosts the podcast with Logan Quiroz. On their show Friday, the day protests began, they spoke live on the phone with people who responded during Goofcon1’s third episode. LaFleur noted during the episode that he also posted a more “militaristic” version of the ad in Craigslist’s Austin section, but didn’t get many responses.

Los Angeles Police Department officers scuffle with demonstrators during a protest in response to a series of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, in Los Angeles, on Monday, June 9, 2025. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Screenshots of the ad were used in social media posts on multiple platforms, cited as proof that those involved in the Los Angeles protests had been paid. The posts gained tens of thousands of likes, shares, and views.

“CALIFORNIA RIOT IS A FUNDED OPERATION,” reads one X post sharing the ad. “Destabilizing the Trump administration and the United States in general is the goal. Then, they receive billions of federal funding to ‘fix’ the damage and pocket the money.”

A TikTok video sharing the ad viewed approximately 14,100 times called protesters “paid agitators” who are turning “what was initially a peaceful protest of just marching into a full-blown riot.”

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Others pointed to the ad as evidence that the protests “aren’t organic” or have been faked by Democrats.

After screenshots of the ad spread on social media, LaFleur posted about the confusion on his Instagram story multiple times.

“Accidentally goofed the entire nation on the latest @goofcon1,” one post reads. In another, he muses: “I don’t really know what to do with any of this. I guess get on Newsmax, or something. If I get on Newsmax, that could be funny.”

False claims about paid protesters regularly spread around demonstrations, especially those that attract national or international attention. Similar false claims spread widely in 2020 during demonstrations over George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police.