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MEDFORD SOFTBALL

7-1 win seals outright GNC championship

Mother Nature postponed the celebration a few days, but the Medford Raiders officially clinched the outright Great Northern Conference softball championship on a sun-splashed Tuesday afternoon with a 7-1 win at Antigo.

A four-run third-inning rally put the Raiders up 5-0, which was more than enough for ace pitcher Martha Miller and the defense. Antigo’s Sam Swartz did homer in the seventh to break Medford’s string of six straight shutout wins and, incredibly, give Miller her first earned run allowed this season.

But that wasn’t going to stop the Raiders, ranked third in the most recent Division 2 coaches state poll, from improving to 10-0 in the GNC and 15-0 overall.

“It felt good,” head coach Virgil Berndt said. “We put pressure on them every inning. We just missed a key hit here or there to really break it open. We had base runners. We made some plays on defense, so it was a good win.”

The next goal on Medford’s list is to complete an undefeated run through the GNC. The Raiders hosted Mosinee Wednesday in the make-up date of last Thursday’s rainout. They’ll host secondplace Tomahawk today, Thursday, at 5 p.m.

Miller struck out 11 batters in Tuesday’s win, walked Antigo’s leadoff hitter in the first and allowed no more free passes and gave up just two hits –– Swartz’s no-doubt bomb to left in the seventh and a third-inning single to left by Greta Parsons.

The Raiders had no errors defensively. Berndt said shortstop Allie Paulson made an outstanding play, robbing Ellie Preboski of a base hit up the middle in the seventh and Delani Clausnitzer cleanly made a handful of plays at third base.

Medford touched Swartz for eight hits and five earned runs in six innings. The Red Robin junior struck out four and walked three. Makala Beck pitched a scoreless seventh, allowing a hit and striking out two.

The Raiders stranded two runners in the first, but got on the board in the second. Rynn Ruesch singled with one out and scored on Allie Wesle’s triple that split the right and centerfielders.

The third inning was the big one. Paulson led off with a walk and Morgan Huegli singled up the middle. Laurissa Klapatauskas was hit by a pitch to load the bases with no outs. Clausnitzer hit a comebacker to Swartz, who got the forceout at home on Paulson, but catcher Alonna Weix tried for the double play at first and her errant throw allowed Huegli to score. With two down, Ruesch walked to re-load the bases for Katie Brehm. With two strikes on her, Brehm got a hold of one and cleared the bases with a drive to left that hit the top of the fence and bounced back into play, giving her a double instead of a grand slam home run.

“I thought that was gone for sure,” Berndt said.

Medford got its two unearned runs in the sixth to open up a 7-0 lead. From there, they got the six outs they needed to secure the program’s second GNC title. The first was a shared championship with Mosinee in 2010.

Nine different Raiders had one hit apiece.

After GNC play wraps up today, Medford will head to the Shawano Quad on Saturday. The Raiders will get a good test from 14-4 New London in their first game at 10 a.m. and will also face the host Hawks at 1 p.m. The JV team plays New London at 11:30 a.m. and Shawano at 2:30 p.m.

The Raiders are currently scheduled to finish their regular season Monday with a 5 p.m. home game against a solid Phillips squad. WIAA Division 2 tournament seeding should be announced soon. The Raiders are likely to draw a firstround regional bye. If that’s the case, they would host a regional semifinal on Monday, June 14.