Pitchers fuel Warhawks’ win

GRAND CHUTE - Arrowhead is wellversed in winning on the strength of its potent offense.

Jacob Johnson showed that the Warhawks are comfortable in a lowscoring affair, too.

Johnson allowed one run over five innings and the Arrowhead offense provided just enough timely hits as the Warhawks advanced to the WIAA state baseball semifinals with a 2-1 win over Burlington on Tuesday at Neuroscience Group Field.

“Pitching and defense was our credo,” Arrowhead head coach Nick Brengosz said.

“We’ve only given up more than three runs four times all year. So we felt good about that. A close game is a close game no matter if it’s a 7-6 game, or a 6-5 game or a 2-1 game. It’s good that it was a low-scorer because that means our pitching and defense were doing their jobs.”

That they were.

With the help of an error-free defense, Johnson scattered five hits and four walks while striking out three to earn the win. The Warhawks senior ceded to Derek Polczynski, the team’s closer, for the final two innings.

After a clean sixth, Polczynski put the go-ahead run on base with a walk and a hit batter but recovered to get a game-ending flyout.

“Jacob Johnson was amazing,” Brengosz said. “Derek Polczynski has played in some big games for us this year, closed it out. It was good to see he hasn’t changed that tune. He wasn’t fazed at all.”

The Warhawks faced Janesville Craig late Tuesday night in their third consecutive semifinal appearance. That game ended too late for this edition.

Arrowhead (23-3) has been pitted against Burlington in those other state tournament runs, as well. While Burlington won the 2016 state championship game in dramatic, comeback fashion, Arrowhead has now taken the last two meetings.

“It’s disappointing,” Burlington head coach Scott Staude said. “Anybody can say this up here, but I really thought we could win it all with the depth of our pitching staff.”

Demons starter Trey Krause was just as sharp as Johnson, limiting an offense that averaged more than 7.5 runs per game to just two, but suffered the loss thanks to a pair of well-timed Warhawks singles.

“Krause was really on,” Brengosz said. “We like to think we got some pretty good hitters, but he was on from the start.”

After a pair of base-running blunders ended threats for the Warhawks in the first and third, they finally came through with men on base in the fourth.

“They had a couple more breaks go their way than we did,” Staude said. “They had a couple of balls that squirted through. They made those plays on us and that ended up being two RBIs here and that’s the difference in the game.”