WIAA DIV. 4 BASEBALL SECTIONAL - Edgar buries Rib Lake early in semifinal and advances to state
Give a good baseball team free bases and you will pay, just like the Rib Lake Redmen did Tuesday in their WIAA Division 4 sectional semifinal with topseeded Edgar.
In a battle between Marawood North and South champions, the Wildcats did all of their damage in the first three innings, with help from the Redmen, and cruised to an 8-1 win in the second semifinal of the day in the Athens sectional tournament. Edgar (18-7) then pummeled Solon Springs-Northwood 14-1 in the final to earn a trip to next week’s WIAA Division 4 state tournament in Appleton.
Rib Lake finished a strong 2025 season at 18-6.
“They’re a good team,” Rib Lake head coach Dick Iverson said. “They’re pretty solid. They lost two games in that Marawood South. That was a pretty tough league with Marathon, Stratford and Auburndale was really good this year. You can’t afford to make those mistakes and we did.”
Third-seeded Rib Lake was fortunate to get out of the bottom of the first inning down 2-0. The Redmen stranded two runners in the top of the first and then the normally reliable Talon Scheithauer struggled to find his comfort zone, walking Edgar’s first three hitters. Leyton Schuett grounded into a forceout to Ty Niemi at third base to drive in a run. After an error and a bases-loaded walk to Sawyer Weiland, it was 2-0 with still only one out. Scheithauer struck out Fletcher Weiland and got Brock Mauer to ground into a fielder’s choice to end the rally there.
“In the first inning we walked the first three guys,” Iverson said. “I actually didn’t feel too bad because we got out of it giving up two runs because we had an error and we walked in a run. We gave up those two runs without giving up a ball out of the infield.”
Edgar, however, was right back at it in the bottom of the second and put up a three-spot. Lucas Stahnke reached on a one-out error. Shortstop Slade Scheithaeur made an all-out diving stop to keep Jase Apfelbeck’s grounder on the infield, but then the Redmen had two throwing errors to put Stahnke and Apfelbeck on third and second base. Dakota Ellenbecker singled in Stahnke. Rib Lake catcher Ethan Cook made a perfect throw that would have caught Ellenbecker trying to steal second but the throw was dropped. Schuett’s groundout scored Apfelbeck and, after Gavin Mauer walked, Edgar got its third run of the inning on a double steal.
The Redmen got their run in the top of the third. Slade Scheithauer and Seth Borchardt led off with singles and moved up on a wild pitch. Talon Scheithauer’s ground ball drove in the run, but Apfelbeck got two strikeouts after that to end the inning.
Edgar then, for all intents and purposes, ended any remaining suspense with another three-spot in the bottom half. The Wildcats got four of their six hits in the game in the inning.
Fletcher Weiland cracked a leadoff double, Brock Mauer hit an infield single and Will Hackel bunted for a hit to load the bases. Stahnke dumped an RBI single into shallow centerfield, Apfelbeck walked in a run and Ellenbecker hit a sacrifice fly. Rib Lake only put three runners on base the rest of the way and one of them, Blake Henderson, was thrown out at home by leftfielder Brock Mauer as he tried to score on a hit by Lucas Cook.
On the positive side, Borchardt pitched two scoreless, hitless innings with three strikeouts. He did hit two batters in the fifth, but Rib Lake got out of that jam when Slade Scheithauer, now playing in centerfield, threw out Stahnke as he tried to go to third base on a fly ball out. Slade Scheithauer pitched a one-two-three sixth with a strikeout.
Apfelbeck was one out away from a complete game when he hit his 100-pitch limit. He struck out nine, walked two and allowed six hits. Ethan Cook, Henderson and Tyler Matyka had hits for Rib Lake.
“We ended up with six hits apiece,” Iverson said. “It wasn’t like we were getting dominated. They have six seniors and they won the Marawood South, which is pretty solid. I think the score wasn’t really indicative of the game. 8-1 sounds like we got kicked, but in reality it probably could’ve been a one-run game. They took advantage of everything we did wrong, that’s for sure.”
Rib Lake and Edgar met in the sectional semifinals for the second straight year. Rib Lake won last year’s game before falling to Solon Springs-Northwood in the final. The Redmen lose two senior starters, Matyka and Brady Heiser, but should bring back the rest of their Marawood North and regional championship club.
“I would say with starting four freshmen and one sophomore, we did OK,” Iverson said. “It’s a pretty young team to have the success that we did this year. I was pretty happy overall with the results. We’re disappointed that we lost in the sectional but at the same time, I think we had a pretty good year.”
