MISQUAH — The Lakeside Pike improved to 2–0 in the Northwoods Recreation League on Saturday, beating the visiting Two Rivers Loggers 9–5 in a game notable, after last week’s fence-ball saga, mainly for what it lacked: any argument whatsoever about the left-field fence, or about anything else.

“The fence stayed out of it,” said manager Denny Dahl, with the audible relief of a man who spent the previous Saturday refereeing a property dispute disguised as a softball game. “Nobody hit it, nobody touched it, nobody’s uncle had to be consulted, nobody played the rest of the game under protest. I’ll take a quiet nine-to-five like that all summer and never once complain about being bored.”

The Pike broke a 2–2 tie with a five-run third inning, the big blow a bases-loaded double off the bat of Dale Ouellette, who finished 3-for-4 and pointedly declined to discuss the previous week’s disputed fence ball, saying only that he had “let the bat do the talking, for once, which is easier on everybody.” The bottom of the order added two more in the fifth, and the lead never felt in doubt.

The book, as kept by Lois Hamre in her nineteenth summer of keeping it, records the afternoon at two hours eleven minutes, attendance at “sixty or so, counting dogs,” and one scoring decision — a generous E-5 that spared a teenager’s batting average — entered, she confirmed, “with the usual mercy. The book remembers what I tell it to.” Misquah out-hit the Loggers eleven to nine and, for the second straight week, committed no errors anyone chose to record.

Cody Brevik went the distance again for Misquah, his second straight complete game, scattering nine hits, walking none, and retiring the side in order in the seventh. “Felt good,” he said, which is, by the unanimous reckoning of those who cover him, the very most Brevik will ever volunteer about himself, win or lose. Two Rivers closed to 7–5 in the sixth but got no closer. The Pike (2–0) travel to Pelican Rapids on Saturday, June 20, at 1 p.m.; Dahl said the bus leaves at 11:30 “and will not wait for anybody, and they know exactly who they are.”