Baumgartner has memorable week of All-Star competition
ALL-STAR HOOPS, BASEBALL
Being named to one of Wisconsin’s summer all-star events is quite an honor for any recently-graduated prep athlete.
Medford’s Logan Baumgartner had the rare distinction last week of playing in two of them back-to-back –– and being on the winning side in all four games played.
First, Baumgartner scored 11 points and added a handful of rebounds as well as a couple of assists and steals in the White team’s 115-101 victory over the Red team in Thursday’s Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association Division 2 All-Star Game at JustAGame Fieldhouse in Wisconsin Dells.
From there, the Baumgartner family headed east to Oshkosh for the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association’s 39th All-Star Classic. Logan was part of the West squad that went 3-0 on Friday and Saturday to win the round-robin event. He saw action at third base and first base and pitched three innings to pick up a save in one of the wins. He also collected two hits over the weekend.
“It was a fun time,” Baumgartner said of his whirlwind week. “It was fun being at the basketball place for three days and just meeting a bunch of good guys, going to water parks and just hanging out with them. Then just going on the road from there going over to Oshkosh. There we had to stay in the dorms, but it was still a good time hanging out.”
The week started with Baumgartner’s arrival in the Dells on Tuesday, about 50 hours before the Division 2 game actually tipped off just before 3 p.m. on Thursday. The White squad was led by head coach Jeff Brieske of Tomah. He was aided by his Tomah assistant Ben Rushlow and La Crosse Central’s highly-regarded head coach Todd Fergot.
The team featured several players Baumgartner and his Medford teammates have competed against over the past couple of seasons, including Bennett Fried and Nic Williams of La Crosse Central, Tyler Orr of Rice Lake and Charlie Morning of Menomonie. The Red squad included Will Fortier from Medford’s Great Northern Conference rival Lakeland.
“Playing against all of those guys, you kinda get a little rivalry with them, like Bennett and Nic from La Crosse Central,” Baumgartner said. “Now you’re on the same team and you’re just hanging out, having a good time. Coach Fergot was the assistant so that was cool to get to talk to him quite a bit.”
After checking in Tuesday, the team jumped right into a 90-minute practice, took a break and returned to the fieldhouse for an evening practice that included short scrimmages against some of the all-star teams from the other divisions.
After a morning practice Wednesday, the team was treated to a jet boat ride in the afternoon and time to hang out that night.
Baumgartner was in the White’s starting five in Thursday’s game and hit the team’s first shot, a right-wing 3-pointer that answered a triple by the Red’s Jamiir Allen fo Wisconsin Lutheran and tied the game at 3-3. Fried, Central’s 6-7 big man, and Williams, Central’s quick 6-2 guard, scored the next two baskets and the White team never trailed the rest of the way.
“I felt like we played pretty good together as a team,” Baumgartner said. “We were selfless and having fun. I felt like I played pretty good. I think I would’ve liked to have made a couple more 3s. But I was happy with how it turned out.”
He said it was a relief to sink his first shot.
“I was kind of afraid of airballing the first one and then it would be like I don’t know if I’d want to shoot again with all of these other guys on the team.” he said.
The White team led 25-16 after 12-minute quarter. Baumgartner started the second quarter and made an impact. He contested a Fortier miss from the outside, made a nice cross-court pass to Morning for an assist and grabbed the rebound off a Williams block, starting a possession that ended with a Fried hoop and a 34-16 lead.
Baumgartner finally got back into the scoring column late in the third quarter, getting a transition layup to make it 82-69. Immediately after that, he got a defensive rebound, took it the other way and drilled a pull-up 3 to extend the lead to 85-69. An attempted tip-in at the thirdquarter buzzer went in and out.
Baumgartner’s final points came on a three-point play with 4:34 left that made it 103-88.
“I think that was coming off a long rebound,” he said. “I did a crossover/between the legs past the guy and just went down the lane and put it in.”
He finished his day by getting the lob assist on a slam dunk by Shawano’s Michael Metcalf-Grassman that made it 113-95. Metcalf-Grassmann scored six second-quarter points and had 10 in the fourth as part of his team-high 18 points. Kenyon Davis of Whitefish Bay scored 12 of his 16 points in the first half. Devin Davenport of Milwaukee Lutheran also scored 16 for the White team, Tommy Fritsch of Greendale scored 13 and Fried hit double digits with 10.
Baumgartner said there wasn’t a ton of offensive game planning that went into the win. The guys basically just went out and played like they know how.
“We had two bigs with Bennett and David (Ackles, a 6-10 post from Whitefish Bay),” he said. “So we were doing more of a four-out, one-in offense. If it seemed like the offense was getting stagnant, the point guard could bring it out and ask for a ball screen or something. We put in a couple plays but nobody really remembered those or used those.
“Everybody there is going on to college, or most of them anyway, are going on to college to play basketball,” added Baumgartner, who will play at UW-Stevens Point. “The competition is only going to get better than that. I think it was a good start to prep me for it.”
The Red’s Allen led all scorers with 21. Fortier hit two second-quarter free throws to finish with two points.
After getting a good night’s sleep at an Oshkosh hotel Thursday night, Baumgartner switched gears to baseball while meeting his 18-member West team on Friday. The team’s first game was that night against the East All-Stars and it was a good one with the West winning 2-1 on a walk-off RBI double by St. Croix Falls star Brayden Olson in the bottom of the seventh inning. Baumgartner went one for two at the plate, getting a ground ball to bounce over the East’s third baseman for his hit and he got one fielding chance at third base and made the play on a hard grounder hit by Dylan Cunningham of Franklin. With 18 players, the baseball all-star teams generally set up their lineups so each athlete plays half the game and makes sure each one starts at least one game.
The West blew out the North 12-3 in its first of two games on Saturday, using an eight-run sixth inning to break it open. A homer by Altoona’s Evan Gustafson was the big blow in the inning. Pitching the final three innings, Baumgartner struck out three and gave up a couple of hits and an unearned run.
At the plate, he struck out twice in that win. Baumgartner said the pitching talent throughout the four teams was incredible.
“I was glad to be on our team,” he said. “We had (Olson), who’s going to Purdue. He tops out at 95 mph. We had the kid from Regis (Cole Selvig) who is going to Texas. He tops out at like 93 and has an 85 mph slider. It’s insane. Ben Berkhof from Hudson is going to North Dakota State University. He’s a lefty who throws in the high 80s, up to 90.
“The pitching I faced, these were the fastest pitchers I’ve seen. A kid from Hortonville was throwing 90. I faced a lefty throwing 88-89 and I don’t like hitting against lefties in the first place. I don’t know why.”
The West’s second game on Saturday was a 10-7 win over the South. The South led 4-0 through five innings, but a ninerun top of the sixth turned the game in the West’s favor.
“I actually played first base the whole game,” said Baumgartner, who recalled playing one inning at first base in his high-school career. “Our team didn’t have a first baseman so we had to borrow a first baseman’s mitt from someone else.
“We almost turned a double play,” he added. “On another play, there was two outs and there was a grounder to third with guys on second and third and then the third baseman threw a little low and I had to scoop it out of the dirt. I didn’t know I could do that.”
He also went one for four at the plate, hitting a clean single through the left side.
The nine-run sixth was highlighted by a three-run homer by Brennan Huber of Wisconsin Rapids, a player the Medford Raiders saw in the regular season.
The West team was coached by Zac Eichten of Somerset, who was assisted by retired Eau Claire North coach Bob Johnson and Spooner’s Josh Villella.
PBR first team
After being named to the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association’s All-State second team, Baumgartner was named to Prep Baseball Report Wisconsin’s All-State first team as a utility player late last month.
“Up in the northern portion of the state hid a gem in Baumgartner, who once again put up video-game numbers for Medford in the 2023 season,” Prep Baseball Report stated in its All-State release. “He helped the Raiders earn a share of the Great Northern Conference, as he handed Mosinee their only loss of the season. Baumgartner has always been a two-way threat, but this year’s numbers stand out amongst the competitors. On the mound, Baumgartner was 10-1 with a 0.81 ERA, striking out 98 batters over the course of 51.2 innings of work. Offensively, the righty was a staple in the middle of Medford’s order, hitting .489 with 18 extra base hits, including four home runs. He racked up 36 RBI and 21 runs scored as well, summarizing a dominant year of play. While he will be taking his talents to Wisconsin-Stevens Point for basketball next year, his work on the diamond should not go unnoticed over the course of his multiple seasons as a Raider, earning himself a first-team All-State honor.”
Baumgartner is Medford’s second PBR first-teamer in a row, following Caleb Guden in 2022.
Medford head baseball coach Justin Hraby was among those cheering on Logan Baumgartner during Friday’s action at the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Classic in Oshkosh.SUBMITTED PHOTO
Aspiring girls basketball players in grades 1-8 took part in Medford’s Youth Summer Camp June 26-29 led by coaches and players from the Raiders’ varsity program. Here, several campers in the grades 1-3 session as well as varsity players Toryn Rau and Aliyah Pilgrim look to steal the ball from Rylee Hraby.
Medford girls basketball head coach Chad Fronk (middle) and assistant Keith Wicks hold their closing huddle at the end of the June 28 session for grades 1-3.
Grace Ingersoll works on her crossover dribble during full-court ball-handling drills in the grades 4-5 camp session June 28 at Medford’s girls basketball camp.PHOTOS BY MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
Logan Baumgartner opts for the easy and sure lay-in rather than going for a dunk during the third quarter of the White’s 115-101 over the Red All-Stars Thursday.BRETT LaBORE/THE LAKELAND TIMES
