MEDFORD BASEBALL - T-Birds hand Medford crushing loss; Raiders get late-week split
MEDFORD BASEBALL
The Medford Raiders entered Friday with a chance to pull into a first-place tie with Mosinee in this year’s Great Northern Conference baseball title chase.
When Monday ended, their chances of contending down the stretch weren’t mathematically gone but they had noticeably dwindled.
The Lakeland Thunderbirds hit Medford with a big gut punch Monday, scoring four times in the bottom of the seventh and ending it on Benny Gahler’s two-out, two-run walk-off homer for an 86 final. Medford had broken a 4-4 tie with two runs in the top of the inning and somehow had the lead despite having just five hits offensively and seven errors defensively.
Former head coach Justin Hraby used to talk about how bad things seemed to happen on the LUHS diamond during the 2010s and current head coach Chandler Schmidt and his team experienced it firsthand in the bottom half.
Merick Trotter started the inning by doubling to right off Medford ace Hayden Strebig. Ben Peterson walked on a 3-2 pitch and Drew Warren singled to left, beating Sam Hierlmeier’s throw to make it a 6-5 game. Peterson went to third on the play, putting runners on the corners with no outs.
Ryder Kraschnewski relieved Strebig and got Cooper Johnson to pop out, though Warren stole second in the at-bat. Tristan Rainey fell behind 0-2, but a wild pitch allowed Peterson to score the tying run before Rainey struck out swinging for the second out. Gahler then lined the first pitch he saw over the leftfield fence.
The loss dropped Medford to 4-4 in the GNC and 4-7 overall. With four league games left, Mosinee is in good position to win its fourth straight GNC title, but the Indians did slip to 6-2 following a stunning 4-0 loss at Tomahawk Tuesday.
Strebig only allowed three earned runs in six-plus innings of work. He struck out four, walked two and allowed seven hits.
Eleven errors between the two teams were a major story as just seven of the game’s 14 runs were earned.
Lakeland’s run in the first inning was one of those unearned runs as was Medford’s in the second, driven in by a Hierlmeier groundout, and Lakeland’s run in the bottom of the second.
The Raiders earned two runs in the top of the third to take a 3-2 lead. Charlie Gierl pulled a leadoff double to right and Evan Wilkins was hit by a pitch. The runners stole their way to a run and Wilkins scored on Parker Lissner’s sacrifice fly.
Medford had a chance to break it open in the fifth, loading the bases on a Gierl single, a Wilkins single and a walk to Will Wojcik. Lissner singled to drive in Gierl and keep the bases loaded with no outs. But Warren wiggled out of the jam with no further damage by getting three straight strikeouts. Lakeland tied the game in the bottom of the fifth.
Medford’s go-ahead rally in the seventh started with Evan Czarnezki reaching on a one-out error. Strebig drew a walk from reliever Max Keuer. Both runners scored on errors by the third baseman and leftfielder on a double steal.
Gierl was two for two, Wilkins was two for two and Lissner was one for four to account for Medford’s hits. Warren went 5.2 innings for Lakeland. He struck out eight, walked three and allowed all five hits, three walks and three of the four runs against him were earned.
Medford is back at it Friday with a nonconference home game against Wausau West at 5 p.m. The Raiders host Tomahawk Monday and travel to Antigo May 15 in GNC play.
Mosinee 11, Medford 3
Medford had a chance to tie Mosinee atop the GNC standings on Friday, but the Indians had other plans, burying Medford early and cruising to an 11-3 win on Youth Night at Raider Field.
The plays weren’t always easy, but plays that were there to be made by Medford defensively in the early innings weren’t and that opened the door for Mosinee to score three runs in the first and six in the third to build a 9-0 lead.
With the win, the Indians opened up a two-game lead over Medford in the GNC standings and got some revenge for Medford’s conference-opening 9-7 win back on April 10.
Zach Nechuta came within an out of going the distance for Mosinee. He struck out eight, walked one and allowed five hits and three earned runs in 6.2 innings. Medford made things interesting against freshman reliever Easton Brooks but he got the last out with the bases loaded.
Mosinee’s Elliot Yirkovsky started the game with a double. Brady Lokken then hit a high pop fly that fell in no-man’s land behind second base. The Raiders got Yirkovsky in a rundown between second and third but a bad throw allowed him to scramble back to second. A dropped line drive on a ball hit by Carter Fandrey loaded the bases for Treve Stoffel, who singled in two of the runners and a third scored on a wild pitch.
Medford starting pitcher Conor Anderson got Fandrey to pop out to strand two runners in a scoreless top of the second. After the Raiders also stranded two runners in their half, Mosinee put the game away.
Stoffel led off the third by reaching on an error. Parker Filipiak then hit a drive to the leftfield fence where Hierlmeier got a glove on it but couldn’t squeeze it and it went for a double. Sebastian Andersen singled in Stoffel. Filipiak would later score on a passed ball. With two outs and the bases loaded, Lokken hit a two-run single and Fandrey followed with a tworun single.
Wilkins singled for Medford and scored on Lissner’s two-out double that was nearly caught in the right-centerfield gap by Filipiak. In Medford’s fourth, Sawyer Elsner doubled with two outs and scored on Gierl’s opposite-field single to left to make it 9-2.
But Fandrey capped a two-for-four, four-RBI outing with a two-run homer in the fifth that put Mosinee back up by nine. Czarnezki had Medford’s last RBI with a bases-loaded walk in the seventh.
Anderson took the loss but threw better than his line indicated. He struck out two, walked two and allowed six hits and seven runs in 2.2 innings. Only two runs were earned. Ryder Kraschnewski covered three innings. He allowed four earned runs, four hits and one walk while striking out two. Nick Krause issued two walks while getting the last four outs.
Wilkins was two for four with two runs scored. Lokken was three for four for Mosinee with two runs driven in and three runs scored.
Raiders 8, Hatchets 5
Three-run rallies in the third and seventh innings carried Medford to an 8-5 win at Tomahawk Thursday to close out the first half of conference play.
Lissner went three for three, drove in a run and scored twice, while Strebig added two hits. They accounted for five of Medford’s 10 hits. The Raiders also took advantage of eight walks issued by Tomahawk and created some havoc on the base paths in the win, played in wet, cool conditions.
The three-run rally in the third broke a 2-2 tie. Wilkins started the game with a single, stole second and scored on a Lissner hit. Elsner reached on an error, moved to third on Hierlmeier’s double and scored on a passed ball in the second. Tomahawk tied it with two runs in its half of the second.
The third-inning rally started with hits from Lissner and Czarnezki. Krause, Czarnezki’s courtesy runner, stole second to put the runners on second and third with no outs. Tomahawk botched Strebig’s grounder, scoring Lissner. Sawyer Elsner snuck a ground ball through the left side for a hit that drove in Krause. Strebig scored when Hierlmeier grounded out to pitcher Cash Olsen.
The Hatchets got single runs in the third and fifth innings to get within 5-4, but Medford’s three-run seventh sealed the win. Lissner singled, stole second and went to third on Czarnezki’s fly ball to right. Lissner scored on a passed ball. Strebig singled and walks to Elsner and Hierlmeier loaded the bases. Strebig scored on a passed ball and an errant throw back to the plate allowed Hierlmeier to also hustle home and score.
The Raiders dug deep into the pitching staff and Restyn Kraschnewski and Brody Paulson got the job done in the win.
Kraschnewski, a freshman, struck out three batters, walked four and allowed a hit and three runs, two earned, in the first three innings. Paulson got credit for the win with four relief innings. He struck out three, walked two and allowed five hits and two earned runs.
Medford catcher Evan Czarnezki gets the putout on Mosinee’s Sebastian Andersen, who tried to score on a ground ball hit to third baseman Will Wojcik during the third inning of Friday’s 11-3 loss to the Indians. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
