Badgers beat Cavaliers, advance to sectionals

NIAGARA – The Niagara High baseball team, playing on its home diamond against St. Thomas Aquinas on Wednesday, May 29 in the final round of regional play, broke up an early 2-2 tie by exploding for 10 runs in the third inning to put the game out of reach and go on to a 13-3 win to move on to sectional competition.

The Badgers, who took advantage of several STAA miscues in that pivotal third, were led by a 2-for-4 performance from Brayden Bartels, who finished with three RBIs. Mason Richtig, Blake Holmes, and Christian Hedmark each chipped in an RBI for Niagara.

STAA’s Teagan Anderson blasted a two-run homer to center field to lead the Cavaliers’ offense. 

Richtig Picked up the win for Florence, striking out six and giving up just two hits over five innings of work.

Young Cougars fall to Chargers

WITTENBERG – This season’s Coleman High baseball team saw its campaign come to an end on Tuesday, May 28 in an away game that saw the team struggle to put any offense together as the Wittenberg/Birnamwood Chargers got two across in the bottom of the first inning en route to a 5-0 victory to advance out of the regional round.

“We’re a very young team and we got rattled a little bit early tonight,” said Coleman head coach Kent Casper. “Overall, we didn’t play that bad, we put the ball in play. We just had some mistakes that could have kept them from scoring runs. But, on the other hand, we didn’t score any runs so you can’t win if you don’t score.”

The Cougars managed just two hits off Chargers starter Nathan Waupekenay, coming from Logan Kurth and Kollin Peters.

Kurth, in his final start on the mound as a Cougar, threw 11 strikeouts in five innings of work. 

“As young as we were, we had a very good year. I’m really proud of the boys, they did an outstanding job,” said Casper. Now it’s up to them to build off of this. We’re mostly freshmen and sophomores this year so we’ll see where next year goes. We’re hoping for a lot of improvement.” 

Cavvies upset top seeded Bobcats

FLORENCE – In the second round of regional baseball action on Tuesday, May 28, the St. Thomas Aquinas Academy pulled off a 6-4 upset of the top-seeded Florence Bobcats to move on to the regional final round where they will face Niagara.

The two teams each got on the board early, with STAA bringing Jake Farley across in the top of the first before the Bobcats responded in the bottom of the frame with three of their own.  

The Cavaliers fell behind by another run in the third when Florence made it 4-1 on a sacrifice fly from Bryce Leffler to bring in Trent McLain from second base. 

STAA responded with a three-run fourth that saw Henry Piasecki, Dominic Tanguay and Dakota Yother score to even the game at 4-4. 

The top of the fifth inning was when the Cavaliers put themselves ahead for good, with leadoff man Piasecki earning a walk, followed by E King getting on base thanks to an error. Both runners would come across later in the inning as the visiting team made the most of a couple of Florence miscues.

Farley got the win from the mound for STAA, going 5.1 innings, scattering five hits and striking out six. Teagan Anderson threw the final 1.2 and recorded two strikeouts and gave up one hit. 

Wildcats defeat Rangers in second round

WAUSAUKEE – The Lena High baseball team is moving on to the regional final round following its 10-8 win over Wausaukee on Tuesday, May 28.

Going into the seventh inning, the Rangers held a 7-6 lead but the Lena offense surged ahead with four runs to take control.

Colt Miller had a productive day at the plate for Lena, going 2-for-5 with a double for a total of five RBIs on the day. Logan Graef, Anthony Seefeldt and D. Comins each added an RBI for the Wildcats in the win.

For Wausaukee, Christian Deschane was 1-for-4 from the plate with three RBIs and Connor Schroeder added one. 

Ty Shallow pitched the final two innings of the game to get the win for Lena. In a gutsy performance, Shallow struck out five batters and gave up no hits.