Reds win title share; Osprey gets playoff spot

DAIRYLAND LEAGUE BASEBALL

The Everest Merchants simply had to win Friday night to earn the undisputed 2021 championship in the Dairyland Baseball League.

But in a summer where it seemed almost anyone could beat anyone on any given day in league play, that’s just not how it was meant to end up.

Instead, Wausau’s 3-1 win over the Merchants opened the door for four more teams to earn a piece of the championship and every one of them did that over the weekend, creating an extremely rare five-way title tie.

The Whittlesey Reds were one of those teams claiming a piece of the championship. They took care of business Saturday afternoon by jumping ahead early and downing 1-10 Interwald 9-4 at Mike Roiger Stadium to improve to 8-3 and join Everest, Marshfield, Minocqua and Wausau as 2021 co-champions.

As the largest group in the six-league Wisconsin Baseball Association with its 12 teams, the Dairyland League also came out as big winners in Tuesday’s WBA playoff seeding meeting, sending eight teams to this year’s expanded 36-team tournament, which opens next weekend, Aug. 13-15. The Whittlesey Reds and Rib Lake Osprey are the two local teams in that playoff field.

Whittlesey earned the third seed out of six teams assigned to the Hayward District Bracket and is in a pool that includes the second-seeded Lake Superior Sea Dogs and the fifth-seeded Eau Claire Bears. In the new pool-play format, Eau Claire will play Lake Superior at noon on Saturday, Aug. 14. Whittlesey will play the loser of that game at 6 p.m. that night and the winner at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 15. The pool champion will advance to WBA Finals weekend, which will be hosted by the Dairyland League Aug. 20-22 at Marshfield and Merrill. Lake Superior went 8-2 to tie the Tony Hayshakers for first place this summer in the Upper 13 League. The Bears went 11-9 in the Chippewa River Baseball League, good for second in that league’s South Division and the fifth-best record overall in the 11-team league.

Rib Lake solidified its spot in the playoffs by burying 2-9 Pittsville 14-1 in eight innings Saturday afternoon and finishing 6-5 in league play, good for seventh place.

Austin Ewan sealed the deal with an eighth-inning grand slam and Austin Edwards got the win with six solid innings, allowing six hits, one run and five walks while striking out two.

Edwards and Jake Brehm hit RBI singles in the top of the third for a 2-0 lead and that’s where the game stayed until the sixth when the Osprey scored three runs. Jeff Ziembo and Bryant Konieczny hit run-scoring singles and Brehm drew a bases-loaded walk. After Jordan Rayburn’s run-scoring groundout got the River Bandits on the board, the Osprey put three more on the board in the top of the seventh for an 8-1 lead.

Pittsville loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the seventh against Edwards, but Konieczny relieved him and got out of the jam with two strikeouts and a fielder’s choice.

Rib Lake then broke it wide open in the top of the eighth with a two-run single by Steve Mann and Ewan’s twoout bomb over the rightfield fence that cleared the bases.

Coming back from an 0-3 start in league play, the Osprey earned the fifth seed in the River Falls District Bracket and will play in a pool that includes the second-seeded Prescott Pirates and the third-seeded Chippewa Falls Lumberjacks.

Prescott finished 11-4 and in second place in the regular season in the St. Croix Valley League. The Pirates are still working its way through the consolation bracket of the league tournament, which resumes this weekend.

Chippewa Falls went 14-6 in the Chippewa River Baseball League, good for third in the North Division and fourth overall. The Lumberjacks were scheduled to face the Eau Claire Cavaliers Wednesday night in a CRBL league tournament semifinal. In River Falls, Chippewa Falls will play Prescott at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 14. Rib Lake will face the loser that night at 7 p.m. and the winner at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 15. Again, the pool winner will advance to the 12-team WBA Finals.

Rest of the league

After beating Everest on Friday, the Wausau River Hawks earned their piece of the league title the easy way on Sunday, earning a 9-0 forfeit win over Westboro, who was unable to round up enough players for the rescheduled league finale. Wausau is the three-seed in the Sparta District Bracket and will play secondseeded Osseo and fifth-seeded Sparta.

Marshfield and Minocqua, on the other hand, had to win back-to-back games to get to 8-3.

Minocqua outscored visiting Westboro 14-5 on Saturday. Matt Kreuger led Westboro’s offense by going three for four with a double and three RBIs. Marcus Klemm was three for five with a double and Derek Niemi was two for five.

The Wood Ducks then earned a piece of their first league title Sunday by rallying for a 7-6 walk-off win over Pittsville.

Minocqua is the three-seed in the Osceola District Bracket and will play second-seeded Tilden and fifth-seeded Spring Valley.

The Marshfield Chaparrals took down a pair of local squads to finish their league season at 8-3. First, the Chaps used late offense to finally pull away from the 4-7 Medford Moon Dogs Saturday night 9-1. This was a 2-1 game until the top of the eighth when Marshfield finally solved Medford starter Brett Paul and scored five runs to break it open.

The Chaps then rallied for an 11-8 win Sunday in a make-up date with Interwald. Marshfield scored seven runs in the seventh and two in the eighth to avoid the upset.

Marshfield drew the second seed in the Haugen District Bracket and will face the third-seeded Chaseburg-Coon Valley Blues and the fifth-seeded Haugen Hornets.

For seeding purposes, the Dairyland League did settle the five-way tie with a run-differential tiebreaker based on games played between the teams. Everest (+8) came away as the one seed from the league and also drew the one-seed in Osceola District Bracket. The Merchants will play fourth-seeded Spooner and sixth-seeded Osceola there.

Marshfield (+7) was considered the Dairyland’s second seed, Minocqua (+2) was third, Whittlesey (-4) was fourth and Wausau (-13) was fifth.

The Merrill Rangers (7-4) finished sixth in the Dairyland standings after knocking off Tomahawk 9-4 on Saturday night and earned the fourth seed at Haugen. They’ll take on the top-seeded Haugen Knights and the sixth-seeded Whitehall Wolves. The expansion of the WBA tournament by four teams certainly aided the 5-6 Tomahawk Titans, who also snuck into this year’s field as the sixth seed at Sparta. Their pool includes the top-seeded Viroqua Sox and the fourthseeded Hudson River Rats.

River Falls is the defending WBA champion. The Fighting Fish beat the Brill Millers 7-3 in Spooner in the championship game of the 2020 tournament.

The 12 teams that make the WBA Finals will be reseeded after the district playoffs. The state tourney will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 20 with two games at both the Marshfield and Merrill sites.

Interwald shortstop Matt Mohr receives a toss from second baseman Jeff Borman to get the forceout on Whittlesey’s Ryan Kraschnewski during Saturday’s game won by Whittlesey 9-4.DONALD WATSON/THE STAR NEWS

Medford third baseman Mike Delzer throws out Marshfield’s Jake Earll after fielding a fourth-inning ground ball Saturday night.TARA WISNIEWSKI PHOTO