GNC CHAMPIONS

MEDFORD BASEBALL

First goal clinched early; Raiders thinking bigger

The 2021 baseball season started as one with high expectations for the Medford Raiders, who reached their first major goal already last Thursday by clinching the outright Great Northern Conference title with a 12-4 win over Antigo at Raider Field.

The win put the Raiders at 10-0 in league play heading into their bye week in the GNC schedule. They’ll still face Mosinee on June 1 and 3 to close out the conference schedule. It also was the team’s 11th win in a row overall and put them at 15-2 overall at the time.

“I think (winning the conference) was a thought out there earlier in the year, but then we realized we were a lot better and we can do more,” senior Spike Alexander said.

“It’s the first step in, hopefully, what we can do,” senior Blaine Seidl said.

Clinching the title with two convincing wins over Antigo was significant for the team’s veterans, who admit they still haven’t fully gotten over giving up a late lead and losing to the Red Robins in a WIAA Division 2 regional final in 2019. Antigo went on to win the state championship. The Raiders had to think about that disappointment even longer when the 2020 season was canceled due to the COVID pandemic.

“We wanted redemption on Antigo for sure from a couple years ago,” junior Caleb Guden said. “That’s still a little salty for us.”

“I am super proud of what these boys have accomplished, clinching the conference with two weeks left,” head coach Justin Hraby said. “These boys have been on a mission all season long and proved that by wrapping up the conference by sweeping Antigo.”

A 7-0 win on May 17 and Thursday’s victory left little doubt who the better team is this time around.

Antigo took a brief 1-0 lead Thursday on Conner Kolz’s two-out RBI double off Guden in the top of the first. But the Raiders took the lead in the second when Logan Baumgartner just reached out and poked a two-out, two-run single to leftfield.

“Logan Baumgartner is starting to heat up for us at the plate,” Hraby said. “He will likely see himself move up in the lineup.”

In a fashion fairly representative of how the Raiders have been successful this season, the Raiders took advantage of what the Red Robins gave them to pile on runs and the pitching held the opposition to five runs or less for the 16th time in 17 games.

A four-run third opened up a commanding 6-1 lead. It started with Tanner Hraby and Alexander both getting hit by pitches from Antigo starter Will Kubeny. Seidl and Aiden Gardner followed with hard-hit RBI singles. Nate Retterath and Brigham Kelley did their jobs by simply putting the ball in play, driving in runs with ground balls.

Gardner drove in an unearned run in the fourth with a groundout. After Kolz doubled in a pair of runs in the top of the fifth to pull Antigo within 7-3, the Raiders got a run-scoring single from Seth Mudgett in the bottom half and scored four times in the sixth to put it away. Baumgartner and Mudgett singled in runs and Joe Gierl hit yet another runscoring groundout for the Raiders.

Baumgartner went three for four and three RBIs out of the eighth spot in the order and Mudgett was three for three from the ninth spot. Gardner was two for four.

Guden struck out eight, walked four and allowed three runs and five hits in five innings to pick up the win.

The captains said the formula to winning has been pretty simple.

“I’d say we’re just having fun playing baseball,” Seidl said. “Bus rides home are a lot more fun when you win.”

“We know we don’t like to lose,” senior Nate Retterath said.

Having won the Great Northern Conference championship and coming so close to a deep WIAA tournament run in 2019, the Raiders missed a chance to build on that success last year. But they knew coming into this year with a roster dominated by seniors and juniors, with an unusually deep pitching staff, and with the very capable additions of Baumgartner, a sophomore, and Hraby, a freshman, more success was certainly within reach.

“I knew going in we were going to be a special team this year, I could just tell with our depth and our talent,” Guden said.

“Since we were little this group has always been a pretty good team,” Seidl said.

Knowing what he had, Hraby and athletic director Andy Guden put together an ambitious schedule that had the full WIAA allotment of 26 games, until rain wiped out Friday’s doubleheader at Stevens Point. Many of those games were scheduled with the intent of challenging the guys and getting ready for what they hope will be a playoff run with a happier ending.

“It’s good playing those bigger schools because it tells you what you can do against better teams,” Retterath said.

“It’s actually a little less stressful than conference because you don’t have that burden and expectation on you,” Guden said.

“It helps to win those games,” Seidl said. “It really sets the tone for when we play the other teams.”

Between now and Medford’s first regional game, which will be June 10 or 15, the Raiders said their plan is to just keep getting sharper.

“Work on the simple things that we’ve always worked on in practice and just allaround just go out on the field and have fun,” Seidl said.

“Yeah, keep having fun and carrying our momentum into playoffs,” Guden said. “Keep winning and doing our thing.”

“It is a great feeling being conference champs again,” Hraby said. “These boys have worked so hard. Their time is really starting to pay off. Let’s hope there is more hardware to come.”

Everest 5, Medford 0

After a doubleheader at Stevens Point Friday was canceled and Monday’s home game with Wisconsin Rapids was halted in the third inning with a 0-0 score and no hits by either team due to heavy rain, the Raiders got back on the field Tuesday and had their winning streak snapped in a 5-0 loss at D.C. Everest.

“This was a game of missed opportunities,” Hraby said. “We left way too many runners on base (11) and could not get that key hit with two outs. Hats off to Everest who threw seven different arms at us, all of them solid high school pitchers.”

Alexander lined into a double play to end the top of the first, an early sign that Medford’s luck might run out for one day. The Evergreens (9-6) pounced on their first opportunity by scoring three runs in the bottom half. Evan Gartzke doubled and scored on Owen Latendresse’s one-out single. Logan Ebersold singled in Latendresse and he later scored on a groundout by Keegan Bohlman.

Medford left the bases loaded in the third and stranded two in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings.

Guden pitched five innings and allowed eight hits, one walk and four runs. He struck out four. Tanner Hraby allowed a run on two hits in the sixth.

“Chubs struggled a bit in the first inning, but after that he settled in and pitched well,” Justin Hraby said. “He did more than enough to keep us in the game. We just couldn’t come up with that big hit.”

While base running in front of Antigo shortstop Eli Fleischman, Medford’s Seth Mudgett unsuccessfully tries to avoid being struck by a baseball hit by teammate Desmon Firnstahl in the sixth inning of Thursday’s GNC title-clinching 12-4 win.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS