A-C regular season comes to rocky conclusion
The Abbotsford-Colby baseball club finished their regular season with a couple question marks. After collecting a no-hitter in an 11-0 victory over Loyal last Thursday, the co-op lost two straight contests by double digits, falling 12-0 to Marathon and 11-1 to Pittsville.
11-1
The Abby-Colby squad traveled to Pittsville on Monday evening to take on the Central Wisconsin-South champs. For a second straight game, the co-op struggled to keep pace with a non-conference opponent, the Panthers delivering them an 11-1 defeat.
Pittsville got to Abby-Colby starter JV Castillo in the second, putting up five runs in the bottom half of the frame to take an early lead. It seemed possible that Castillo would work himself out of a bases loaded jam by inducing a pop fly to shallow right field for the second out of the inning, but instead five straight Panthers would reach safely, leading to a 5-0 advantage for the home team.
Brandon Diedrich drove in Evan Reis with an RBI single in the following inning to pull closer. However, Panthers once again did damage with two outs, picking up two more runs in the bottom of the third to effectively undo the offensive effort from the co-op.
Four more runs from Pittsville in the fifth sealed the visiting Abby-Colby club’s fate, ending the co-op’s hopes for a comeback by enacting the mercy rule.
Diedrich and Payton Schreiber each had two hits for the club on Monday. Schreiber recorded the team’s only extra base hit, a triple in the fourth with no outs. However, the co-op was unable to bring him home, an issue that plagued them throughout the contest. Abby-Colby left base runners stranded in scoring position in every inning but the first, unable to find the clutch hit when needed. Reis and Castillo also picked up hits for the co-op.
12-0
Abby-Colby played host to the Marathon Red Raiders on Friday. In a battle between the Marawood-North and Marawood- South conference champions, the co-op came out on the short end of a 12-0 blowout.
The Red Raiders used a six-run fourth to pull away from Abby-Colby. All six of those runs came without an out being recorded, Marathon taking advantage of errors and walks given by the home team and supplementing them with clutch hits to take a decisive advantage in the contest.
Meanwhile the co-op lineup found very little to work with. The team drew three walks but only had two hits through six innings.
Evan Reis reached base in all three of his plate appearances, hitting a double to deep-right center in the third and being hit by two pitches in his other two appearances. He also had the team’s sole stolen base. Brandon Diedrich had the other hit for the co-op.
Diedrich started the game and was charged with the loss. The senior pitcher gave up five hits in three innings, but three walks and errors caused seven runs to score, four of which were earned. He also struck out two batters. Reis went two-and-a-third innings, giving up four runs on four hits and two walks while striking out one. JV Castillo and Mateo Lopez also made short appearances in the game.
Loyal, 11-0
Evan Reis and Nano Lopez combined to throw a five-inning no-hitter against the Loyal Greyhounds last Thursday. Behind the solid defensive effort, the co-op cruised past their Cloverbelt-East opponents to take the 11-0 victory.
Reis, the winning pitcher, went three innings without allowing a baserunner, needing only 30 pitches to do so. Lopez followed up with two scoreless innings of his own to close out the game and keep the no-hitter intact. The pair only had one strikeout between them as the Greyhounds consistently put the ball in play. However, thanks to a lockdown defensive effort from Abby-Colby’s fielders, Loyal was not able to turn that contact into base-runners.
Meanwhile, the co-op had no such issues on offense. They collected 10 hits and earned seven walks over the five innings of play and 10 different players got on base at least once.
Abby-Colby quickly established themselves in the bottom of the first by putting up four runs against Loyal’s starter. They tacked three more on in the sec- A-C
ond to take a 7-0 lead and after a scoreless third, the co-op matched their first inning production in the fourth to put themselves up by double-digits.
Blake Bargender and Payton Schreiber had excellent days at the plate. Bargender had a hit in all three of his at-bats, including a double, while knocking in two runs. Schreiber went 2-3 with a double and a triple, collecting two RBIs and a run himself. Reis helped his own cause by connecting on his team-best sixth triple of the season and bringing in one runner to score. He also scored two runs himself.
JV Castillo smacked a double and drew two walks while stealing two bases and scoring two runs. Brandon Diedrich and Mateo Lopez each went 1-3 with an RBI and Jackson Snapp had one hit in his one at-bat while scoring twice and stealing a base.
The Marawood-North champs will have to make quick corrections to what went wrong in the Marathon and Pittsville contests with the first round of the WIAA playoffs next up for the club. The Abby-Colby squad earned a four-seed in their Division 2 bracket and they are scheduled to host the 13th-seeded Black River Falls/Fall Creek combined team. The visitors will be coming into the contest with a 6-13 record and on a six-game losing streak. The only opponent that both teams faced during the regular season was Pittsville, which BRF/FC split with, winning their first matchup 7-6 and falling 7-0 in the second game.
The first-round playoff game is scheduled for Thursday, May 25 at 4:45 p.m.
SUPPORTING THE VETERANS -Brandon Diedrich, left, and Mateo Lopez, above, as well as other members of the Abby-Colby baseball team sported special camo jerseys as part of Military Appreciation Night at Red Arrow Park on Friday. The jerseys were auctioned off after the game and the $664 in proceeds was donated to the Colby VFW. STAFF PHOTOS/NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD
ROCKET ARM -Blake Bargender prepares to launch a throw down to first after corralling a bunt against Marathon.STAFF PHOTO/NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD
