State medalists win opener

Defending state champ Stratford beats Rib Lake

By Casey Krautkramer

A lot has changed since the spring of 2019 when Stratford’s baseball team won the first state championship in school history.

The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the 2020 season and a pair of instrumental players on the Tigers state title squad, Eli Drexler and Chandler Schmidt, are now playing Division 2 college baseball.

Drexler was a senior starting centerfi elder on the team’s magical journey to winning the WIAA Division 3 state championship in 2019 and Schmidt, who tossed a complete-game 9-4 win against Markesan in the 2019 state title game, would’ve been the team’s ace pitcher in 2020 had there been a season.

Stratford head varsity baseball coach Marshall Lehman, now in his third year guiding the team, said although an opportunity for the Tigers to repeat as state champions last season was lost because of COVID-19, he’s still looking forward to seeing what this season’s squad can do.

“We were excited to try and repeat last year, but now this year everyone is in the same boat,” Lehman said. “All of our returning players missed a full spring season, but we were fortunate that some of our players were able to play Legion games over the summer. Things are a little different this year with the season schedule starting later, so we used our 15 contact days to get our players back into baseball form. The players and coaches are very excited to get back at it and that made running contact days easy. Just like two years ago, we are focusing on staying consistent in practice; we practice like we play and play like we practice. If we can get our coaches and players to do that, I think we can get back on track pretty quickly even though we missed an entire season.”

So far so good for the Tigers. Stratford beat Rib Lake, 3-1, in its seasonopening game on Tuesday at home. Senior pitcher Kale Weisenberger tossed a gem on the mound against the Redmen. He earned the win while striking out a dozen Rib Lake batters in his five innings. Weisenberger only surrendered three hits, a walk and one earned run. He also helped himself out at the plate by hitting two for three with a run scored.

Junior Gavin Kirsch supplied the power for Stratford with a home run. He batted two for three with an RBI and a run scored. Senior catcher Kolten Schillinger hit one for four with a run scored, while Gavin’s twin brother, Dillon Kirsch, had one hit. Junior Cam Daul earned the pitching save after striking out four hitters in the final two innings.

The cupboard isn’t completely empty for coach Lehman this season. Seniors Colten Schillinger was the team’s starting catcher and Riley Bauman the starting left fielder on Stratford’s 2019 state championship team.

“The more experience you can have coming back from previous years is definitely a plus,” Lehman said. “We are looking at Colten and Riley to be our leaders for this team. We have 10 seniors total on this year’s team, so we are leaning on them to push this team and continue our success from two years ago.”

Stratford alumnus Drew Spaeth returns as the team’s assistant coach who works with the team’s pitching staff. Ryan Bloom is the JV coach and Scott Bauman the JV2 coach. Coach Lehman said Spaeth, who was a pitcher at UW-Stevens Point, does a great job molding a solid pitching staff together each season. “Coach Spaeth does an exceptional job with our pitchers,” Lehman said. “Riley Bauman and Kale Weisenberger both pitched a little for us two years ago and have pitched a lot over the summer. We are looking to lean on both of them this year. We also have some good younger depth in juniors and Camden Daul and sophomores Braeden Schueller and Jackson Ormond.”

Senior Hunter Ford, Bauman and Daul all played for the Marshfield American Legion Post 54 senior team last summer. Meanwhile, Ormond and Schueller both played on the Marshfield American Legion Post 54 junior squad.

Just because the Tigers are less experienced this season, Coach Lehman said his team should remain in contention to win the Marawood South Conference at the end of this season.

“This year’s team is led by our large senior group and we have some good young talent; many of them have played many years of spring baseball and have put in a lot of time playing summer ball,” Lehman said. “I feel this is going to help our players get back to the level we were playing at two years ago, even with taking a year off. The Marawood South has some very talented teams again this year and we are looking forward to some fun competitive games. Our coaching staff is very excited for this team and we feel we have good all-around player depth to make a good run for the top of the conference this year.”

Stratford next plays at 4:45 p.m. this Thursday, April 29, at Prentice; Friday, April 30, vs. Phillips and Monday, May 3, at Assumption.