Falls, Greendale lose in state semifinals
GRAND CHUTE – Despite six errors in the first four innings on defense, Menomonee Falls had the game-tying run 90 feet away in their semifinal matchup with Bay Port on Tuesday night.
But, as Falls coach Tim Gotzler noted after the Phoenix's 4-3 defeat at the hands of the state tournament's eighth seed, baseball can be a brutal game.
With Falls facing its final strike for the fifth time in the inning, Caden Wilson, one of the team's sparkplugs, flew out to right to end the comeback at Neuroscience Group Field at Fox Cities Stadium.
“I'm proud of the way we battled through it,” Gotzler said on the adversity the defensive woes presented his team.
“It would've been very easy to quit and let them hang up another crooked number. You know, three becomes four, four becomes seven, seven becomes 10 and we get laughed out of here. We competed. (Derek) Steinbrenner competed for us on the mound. (Joey) Spaulding gave us two great innings.”
Steinbrenner, who took a fastball to the cheek in an at-bat during Falls' 6-1 win over Westosha Central in the first game of the day, gave the Phoenix (21-8) five innings of three-hit ball with seven strikeouts. Spaulding gave up a pair of hits but struck out four and kept the Pirates (21-9) off the board in both innings of work.
Bay Port will play Milton at 6 p.m. Saturday in the Division 1 championship game.
“They just compete. They work with what they have," Gotzler said of his pitchers. "All outs count the same. 21 outs is 21 outs, but everybody gets there differently. Some guys are high strikeout guys. Some guys are flyball guys. Our challenge is, how do we get those outs. From Zach, to Derek, to Joey, all our outgetters, they all get there differently.
"That's the kind of mix we throw at these guys. We look at our pitching staff every year and try to figure out how can we keep chipping away at outs. They kept us in the game because when you're trying to add runs, you've got to keep them off the board. When you start slamming the door on them, you can start chipping away at it and give yourself a chance in the bottom of the seventh with the tying run on third base and the winning run on first base.
"The errors obviously cost us tremendously, but to be able to put ourselves in that position with Caden Wilson up, we'd take that opportunity.”
After two quick outs to start Falls' seventh, Keli Grennier was hit by a pitch with two strikes. Jack Anderson drew a walk to bring up Zach Wolfram, who drove another clutch hit into the rightcenter field gap to trim the lead to one before Wilson's flyout.
“Offensively, we were right there," Gotzler said. "Obviously, we broke through a little bit, but I want to give Bay Port a tremendous amount of credit. They made the plays they were supposed to make.
"Both programs are very similar. I was talking to Harvey (Knutson), their head coach and a coaching buddy. Both teams were here last year, both got gutted at graduation, both programs kind of came out of nowhere this year. It was supposed to be a down year for them, and then all of a sudden, we get into the state tournament and there's upsets all throughout the day.
“As you can see, there's great baseball teams here in all corners of the state. I had a feeling it would be a close game. In the state semis, you expect that kind of game, especially with a team like Bay Port.
"The elephant in the room is the errors. It's just part of the game unfortunately. You wish you didn't have them, but it's part of the game and managing that. I told my shortstop (Keli Grennier) I'd put you there a million times out of a million. You're our guy.”
Greendale’s run ends
After an astonishing comeback in which Greendale score five runs in the seventh and eighth innings to survive the quarterfinals Tuesday afternoon, the Panthers found themselves in the state tournament semifinals for the first time.
Greendale head coach Brian Johnsen made things clear after the Panthers' 6-4 comeback against No. 2 seed Eau Claire North in the quarterfinals. There's going to be nothing left in the team's tank.
“We're gonna empty the tank today,” Johnsen said. “I told the guys, ‘You're making history. Leave it all out there. Empty the tank and go get it. Don't leave anything in there.'”
In a game that started at 10:20 p.m., the Panthers (21-10) gave themselves a chance early, tying the game at 2-2 in the top half of the fourth inning after leadoff man Jack Bauer laced a bullet up the middle to score a run. But Milton capitalized on four Panthers errors and scored the next six runs to end Greendale's season with an 8-2 victory.
The Red Hawks (23-7) used a pair of two-run singles from Braden Bastian and Gavin Kilen to put the contest out of reach for the Panthers, who went hitless after the fourth inning.