What a game!

WIAA DIV. 2 BASEBALL REGIONAL FINAL

A disappointing end, but regional final was an all-time great

Rarely does a game leave fans and participants with so much to talk about, yet without words at the same time.

The June 1 WIAA Division 2 baseball regional final between the Medford Raiders and Mosinee Indians was one of those cases.

The host Indians won the matchup between two of the state’s top four ranked teams in Division 2 in nine innings 9-8 on Davin Stoffel’s base hit up the middle through Medford’s drawn-in defense. The big pitches, big defensive plays, big hits and momentum shifts between the first pitch and the last were numerous during the three-hour contest.

“It was hard to be on the losing side of that game,” Medford head coach Justin Hraby said. “With that said, it was a great baseball game. I don’t know if I have ever been involved in a game like that. As a player, coach or fan, I don’t think I have ever seen anything as intense as that. Two teams just empty the tank and give everything they have. Two teams that are at the top of the D2 rankings, getting after it. It surely was a game to remember. It’s just too bad we came up on the short end of the scoreboard.”

What was a tense battle of defense and pitching between starters Caleb Guden of Medford and Keagen Jirschele of Mosinee through five and a half innings turned into an offensive slugfest where each team answered the other’s surge as the starters reached the end of their outings and outs became hard to get for the relievers. It started in the bottom of the sixth inning with three consecutive solo home runs by the Indians, an almost unheard-of feat in Wisconsin high school baseball. Just when one thought a team was finished, that squad put another rally together to stay alive.

Unfortunately for the Raiders, who finished the year 22-6, the Indians’ last rally was more productive than theirs. Mosinee (26-3) advanced to Tuesday’s Division 2 sectional tournament in Abbotsford, where the Indians beat Altoona 5-4 and Rice Lake 10-3 to qualify for next week’s state tournament at Fox Cities Stadium just outside of Appleton.

The offensive fireworks

With neither team able to dent the scoreboard through five innings, the big question became how far could each starter go.

Starting the inning at 82 pitches, Jirschele needed just 11 to get through the top of the sixth, thanks to a pitcher’s best friend, a tailor-made 6-4-3 double play hit by Raider Aiden Gardner that killed a potential rally after Guden started the inning with a single and Tanner Hraby was hit by a pitch.

Guden started the bottom half of the inning at 85 pitches and wasn’t as fortunate.

Stoffel crushed his first pitch of the inning over the fence in left-center for the game’s first run. Left-handed hitting Tanner Unertl blasted the next pitch over the fence in right to make it 2-0 and add to the frenzy in and around Mosinee’s dugout. Six pitches into the next at-bat, left-handed hitting Gavin Obremski got another one over the rightfield fence to make it 3-0 and end Guden’s outing.

Seth Mudgett took over and allowed another run on Trenton Dorn’s RBI single.

Ahead 4-0 going to the seventh, the Indians sensed a regional title. The Raiders said not so fast.

Braxton Weissmiller led off the top of the seventh with a seeing-eye single up the middle. Parker Lissner flied out to right, but that’s where Jirschele hit the 100-pitch mark and was relieved by Stoffel.

He walked Max Dietzman and Brigham Kelley singled up the middle to load the bases for the top of Medford’s order. Mudgett walked to drive in Weissmiller with Medford’s only run charged to Jirschele in 12.2 innings against him this spring. When Stoffel fell behind Guden 2-0, he was relieved by Trevor Garski. The at-bat ended with Guden walking to score Dietzman.

Tanner Hraby, a day after hitting a grand slam against Antigo for his first varsity home run, then hit a rocket to left that hit the base of the fence for a triple that cleared the bases and suddenly put Medford ahead 5-4, shifting the hysteria to the other side of the field. Gardner walked, then Logan Baumgartner’s towering fly ball to left went for a sacrifice fly that put the Raiders in front 6-4.

“Our boys never give up,” coach Hraby said. “First off, after giving up three home runs in a row, then a few more hits, our guys managed to minimize the damage and keep it at four. We then met as a team and said, ‘it is not over. It is time to grind out at-bats.’ We never really talked much about Jirschele being done, just had to have a good approach and make them throw a lot of strikes until we get the tying run to the plate. Braxton started it out by slapping a single up the middle. Once Jirschele was done, we took advantage of a struggling Stoffel. To score six runs in that inning says a lot about our boys and the fact that they knew we were never out of a game.

“Tanner came up big in the playoffs for us,” Hraby added. “He was a couple of feet away from having another grand slam. I feel like they pitched around Chubs to not let him hit the grand slam. When Chubs walked and Tanner came up, he had a good approach. He got

Aiden Gardner lets out a yell as he crosses home plate with the second run on Logan Baumgartner’s tworun double in Wednesday’s ninth inning.