TITLE IS WITHIN REACH

RIB LAKE BASEBALL

Rib Lake pitcher Carter Scheithauer (left) throws out an Athens hitter at first base for a key out in the top of Tuesday’s seventh inning, and Sam Gumz scores what wound up being the winning run on Brock Thiede’s two-out, two-run double in the sixth as the Redmen took down Athens 6-5 to take over the Marawood North lead. The Redmen hold a one-game lead in the loss column over Athens and Abbotsford-Colby heading into a rematch today in Athens.

Win over Athens puts Redmen in good position

Early in the baseball season, the Rib Lake Redmen learned the hard way at times how detrimental not putting the ball in play can be.

On Tuesday, they saw the benefits of making contact and successful situational hitting. Three early sacrifice flies put Rib Lake up early and a clutch two-out, two-strike, two-run double by Brock Thiede in the sixth provided the winning margin in a 6-5 win over visiting Athens that puts Rib Lake on the verge of clinching at least a share of the Marawood North championship.

Three teams remain in the mix with two days of conference play remaining. At 7-1 in the North, Rib Lake holds a half-game lead over 7-2 Athens. Those teams will play again today, Thursday, in Athens at 4:45 with the Blue Jays needing to win to stay alive.

Abbotsford-Colby is a game back at 6-2. After beating Phillips 13-3 at home Tuesday, the co-op visits the Loggers today and has to make up a game with last-place Prentice on Tuesday.

Rib Lake hosts a make-up game with Phillips at 4 p.m. on Friday.

“It’s up to us now,” Rib Lake head coach Dick Iverson said. “Win Thursday and we clinch it, at least a share. If we don’t, then we have to win Friday.”

While clutch contact was key Tuesday, solid defense and big pitches in big moments also part of the winning formula. Carter Scheithauer went 6.1 innings before he hit his 100-pitch limit. He struck out five and walked three with two of those being intentional. He allowed seven hits and five runs, four of which were earned. He hit one batter.

Logan Blomberg and Michael Borchardt each recorded an out in a tense top of the seventh.

With the game tied 4-4, Ryan Patrick led off Rib Lake’s bottom of the sixth inning by reaching on an error. Two outs later, Sam Gumz singled to push Patrick to third and Gumz wound up getting to second. Thiede then capped his three-for-four day with his second double, scoring both runners.

“I was pleased with our hitting,” Iverson said. “We got a couple of sacrifi ce bunts down. We got a couple sacrifi ce flies. Instead of striking out, we put the ball in play. That’s been our season. When we put the ball in play, we’ve been pretty successful. When we strike out and don’t put any pressure on the defense, we’ve struggled.”

The last three outs, however, did not come easily.

The leadoff man was hit by a pitch, but Scheithauer fielded a comebacker and got the out at first base. An infield single put two runners on and that’s when Scheithauer hit his limit and Logan Blomberg relieved him.

A sacrifice fly scored a run but put Rib Lake one out away from victory. But an intentional walk and a hit batter loaded the bases and Iverson made another move, going to sophomore Michael Borchardt. With a 2-2 count, Borchardt got the Athens batter to chase a high fastball and ended it.

“We knew it was going to be a close game,” Iverson said. “Looking at the scores, they’ve played the same teams like we did. You could tell they were scoring pretty much the same amount as we were, so we figured it was going to be a one-run game.”

Rib Lake jumped ahead 2-0 in the first with a single from Gumz, a double by Thiede and sacrifice flies by Blomberg and Scheithauer. Borchardt reached on an error in the second, was bunted to second, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored on Andrew Wudi’s sacrifice fly.

Athens got two hits and a run in the top of the third. Rib Lake got hits from Thiede and Blomberg and an unearned one in the bottom half.

The Blue Jays put together a threerun rally in the fifth to tie it and still had runners on the corners with one out. But Scheithauer cut the rally short by getting two fly balls. Athens had two runners on with no outs in the fourth, but did not score.

“We put the ball in play, which is what we want to do,” Iverson said. “Make them field it and we took advantage of their errors. They had a costly error in the second, an error in the third cost them a run and an error in the sixth cost them a couple runs. We only struck out twice the whole game, so we put the ball in play and that was the difference. They put the ball in play too, but then they had some costly strikeouts at key times.”

After Thiede’s three-hit game, Gumz was two for four and Blomberg, Scheithauer and Patrick had a hit apiece. Schiethauer’s hit was a double.

Scheithauer won’t be available to pitch in these final two conference games. Blomberg and Borchardt are like- ly to get starts, while Ty Annala and Jake Matyka will need to be ready to contribute in relief.

“We have to get 14 innings out of the other four guys,” Iverson said.

Rib Lake hosts Flambeau Monday in non-conference play. The WIAA Division 4 post-season could start as early as June 10.