RL wins ugly at Owen-Withee; sweep of Phillips is beautiful

RIB LAKE SOFTBALL

It wasn’t pretty, but the Rib Lake softball team took care of business Tuesday with a 27-13 non-conference win at Owen-Withee to get to 10 games over .500 at 14-4 overall.

Walks were the main culprit for both sides for the high runs totals. Rib Lake drew 25 of them in the six-inning contest to pull away for the victory, which was the team’s fourth in its last five outings.

An 11-run third inning put Rib Lake in front 14-3 and the lead went to 17-3 in the fourth when things went haywire with a nine-run inning for the Blackhawks in the bottom of the fourth that pulled them within 17-12.

But Rib Lake settled down after that and used an eight-run sixth to put the game away and drop Owen-Withee to 2-11 overall.

“The good news is we were able to get some innings for the girls who don’t always get as much playing time,” Rib Lake head coach Craig Scheithauer said. “And we were disciplined at the plate. We took a lot of pitches and didn’t get ourselves out a lot, which is sometimes hard to do in games like this.”

While scoring 27 runs on the 25 walks, the Redmen didn’t get a lot of hits, but there were some key ones mixed in. Lily Butler had two two singles as did Madilyn Blomberg. Cassandra Cano had an RBI single as well. Addison Gumz had a hit while drawing three walks.

The queen of walks in the win was Avery Niemi, who drew five. Josie Scheithauer drew four walks, singled and hit a sacrifice fly. Tahlia Scheithauer, Leah Chmielowiec and Kiana Dallmann all drew three walks apiece.

Tahlia Scheithauer got the start in the circle and pitched the first three innings. With a big lead, Craig Scheithauer wanted to give Dallmann some work and felt she got a tough break to start the fourth when she threw what he felt were pitches that could’ve been called strikes. None were and that just set a tone where his sophomore pitcher just never found her groove in the tough nine-run inning.

“I thought she threw pitches that could’ve been called strikes, and then we didn’t help her a couple of times defensively. We had a couple of good opportunities but didn’t make the plays.”

Tahlia Scheithauer returned in the later innings and closed things out.

While it wasn’t exactly the type of game a team was looking for with the WIAA tournament right around the corner, Scheithauer said the Redmen will take the positives, learn what they can from it and move forward.

A practice game at Phillips looked to be in the works for today, Thursday, and Scheithauer said he was putting out feelers to see if one last game could be worked out on Friday before Rib Lake starts WIAA Division 5 post-season play on Tuesday. The Redmen drew the third seed in their half of the sectional and will host sixth-seeded Prairie Farm on Tuesday. The winner will likely get secondseeded Athens in the May 25 regional final. The Marawood North champs will play either 10th-seeded Prentice or seventh- seeded Elmwood-Plum City in its regional semifinal Tuesday.

Rib Lake 9, Newman 4

On Monday, Rib Lake started the last week of the regular season with a bang, pounding out 14 hits and building a 9-0 lead in a 9-4 home win over Newman Catholic.

Tahlia Scheithauer went four for four with two doubles and two runs batted in, while Niemi also cracked two doubles while going two for four and driving in three.

Josie Scheithauer had her second straight strong outing in the pitching circle, going six innings and allowing four hits, two walks and hitting a batter while striking out eight. Two of the three runs against her were earned. Tahlia Scheithauer pitched the seventh, getting a strikeout and allowing two hits and a run.

Tahlia Scheithauer hit a sharp grounder off the third-base bag for a firstinning double off Newman starter Ashley Jankowski and wound up scoring when Newman had two errors on a ground ball hit by Niemi.

The big inning for Rib Lake was the second. Chmielowiec singled and Dallmann reached on an error. They were sacrificed up a base on a perfect bunt by Blomberg. That paid off when Kara Kennedy singled up the middle, driving them both in. Tahlia Scheithauer hit an infield single with two down. Kennedy and Scheithauer scored when Niemi lined a gapper to left-center for her first double, making it 5-0.

“We came through,” Craig Scheithauer said. “We moved some girls over and came up with the hit. Not every time. We did get a couple of bunts down today, which was nice. We need to do more of it.”

Tahlia Scheithauer singled and went to second on an error by the leftfielder with one out in the fourth. She scored on Niemi’s second double. Courtesy runner Cano later scored on a base hit by Josie Scheithauer, who was three for four in the win.

Rib Lake nearly put the 10-run rule into effect in the fifth. Butler and Kennedy singled and both scored on Tahlia Scheithauer’s two-out double. Jankowski kept the game going by getting Niemi to ground out. Kennedy was two for three out of the ninth spot in Rib Lake’s order.

Newman took advantage of two Rib Lake errors and a wild pitch to score three times in the sixth. Lily Shields hit an RBI single for Newman with two outs in the seventh.

Stratford 10, Rib Lake 0

The Redmen were hoping to carry some momentum over from a double-header sweep the previous day, but the offense never got going and some defensive miscues led to two big innings for Stratford in its 10-0, five-inning home win.

Partially to give his top two pitchers a breather after they had worked the previous day and partially to give Stratford a different look after they’d seen one of the Marawood South’s top pitchers, Makayla Wirkus of Edgar, in back-to-back games, Scheithauer gave Gumz the start in the circle. He felt Gumz pitched well in her three innings, but the errors didn’t help her as the Tigers scored five unearned runs as part of their six-run second and four-run third.

“We had three errors in there on routine plays,” Craig Scheithauer said.

Laney Pankratz shut out Rib Lake through three innings, striking out four, walking one and allowing three hits. Rib Lake’s best threat came in the top of the first innings. Gumz walked and Niemi singled to put two on with one out, but a strikeout and pop-up ended the inning. Tria Tubbs struck out three and allowed one hit while shutting out Rib Lake in the last two innings.

Stratford outhit Rib Lake 8-4. Dallmann was two for two for the Redmen, getting a single against each Tiger pitcher.

Lexie Christopherson had a two-run double and Tessa Berg had an RBI triple in Stratford’s third inning.

Gumz struck out two, walked two and allowed eight hits. Tahlia Scheithauer pitched a scoreless fourth with a strikeout.

Loggers swept

On Thursday, Rib Lake would not be denied in the late innings and clinched a second-place finish in the Marawood North with two wins over the visiting Phillips Loggers.

In game one, Rib Lake put pressure on Phillips’ defense in the top of the seventh inning and the Loggers cracked as a four-run rally pushed the Redmen over the top in a wild 7-6 win. That was the resumption of a game that was suspended in the third inning due to rain in Phillips three days earlier.

In game two, Phillips took an early 2-0 lead but it vanished when Rib Lake scored five times in the bottom of the fifth to secure a 5-2 win in which pitcher Josie Scheithauer struck out 12 hitters, walked only one and allowed just four hits and one earned run.

Rib Lake finished 6-2 in the North, while Phillips slid to third place at 4-4. The wins were Rib Lake’s first over Phillips in Marawood North play since a season sweep in 2012.

Rib Lake led the first game 2-0 when it was suspended, thanks to two runs in the top of the third, including an RBI single by Niemi. That lead held until the bottom of the fifth when Rib Lake fell apart defensively with three errors and Phillips took a 3-2 lead. The errors of that inning, for some reason, became problematic for both teams the rest of the way. Chmielowiec doubled in the top of the sixth and scored the tying run on an errant throw as she went to third on Dallmann’s groundout. The Loggers thought they had regained control when they scored three runs in the bottom of the sixth. While no errors officially were charged to Rib Lake, the Redmen had two chances to get outs when a throw wasn’t quite handled on a stolen base by Phillips and a foul pop-up wasn’t caught near the third-base dugout. Phillips got an RBI single by Lily Miller and a long two-run homer to left by Kendall Weik with two outs to regain the lead.

Weik, however, issued a one-out walk to Gumz and that set the game-winning rally in motion in the top of the seventh. Tahlia Scheithauer singled to left, Niemi dropped a blooper to the left side for a hit to load the bases and Rhonnie Jo Scheithauer won a long battle with Weik by lining an RBI single up the middle. Weik struck out Josie Scheithauer to put Rib Lake on the brink of defeat, but an error on a grounder hit by Chmielowiec tied it and a mistake by Phillips on another grounder hit by Dallmann put Rib Lake in the lead.

Ironically, the game ended with a defensive gem as Gumz, playing third, speared a liner by Logger Isabelle Teeters that appeared to be headed toward the leftfield corner.

Tahlia Scheithauer got the win. She struck out four, walked four and allowed six hits and six runs, four of which were earned. Niemi was two for four to lead the offense.

In game two, Phillips nudged ahead by scoring on a passed ball in the top of the first and an BRI single by Brooke Eckert in the top of the third. The game turned in the bottom of the fifth and it started with Josie Scheithauer reaching on a passed-ball third strike. Chmielowiec doubled her in, Dallmann singled and Blomberg hit a big two-run double to put the Redmen in the lead. She scored one out later on a base hit by Gumz, who later scored on Niemi’s sacrifice fly.

Dallmann had two of Rib Lake’s seven hits off Weik. She was two for two. Five others had a hit apiece.

Rib Lake’s Addison Gumz makes a throw from third base during the team’s 7-6 win over Phillips on Thursday.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS