Homer caps big week for Klapatauskas, sends Medford to sectionals

WIAA DIV. 2 SOFTBALL REGIONAL FINAL

Weeks don’t get much better for a softball player than the one Medford’s Laurissa Klapatauskas had last week.

Two days after holding Lakeland to three hits and hitting the go-ahead, sixth-inning three-run homer in the regional semifinal, the senior took things a step further Thursday, hitting a walk-off solo homer to lead off the bottom of the seventh inning in a 2-1 WIAA Division 2 regional final victory over Antigo.

Antigo centerfielder Jenna Czerneski almost made the play on the deep fly ball, ranging far to her right to get a glove on it, but that actually wound up being a bad break for the Red Robins as the ball bounced off her glove and over the fence, setting off a wild celebration at home plate.

“It felt pretty good, but I was like, ‘it’s in the air, they have time to get under it, but I’m just going to keep going, keep running’” Klapatauskas said. The two dramatic homers, ironically, were her first dingers of 2022. “It was kind of a blur. I didn’t really take it all in until I got past second base. But that was awesome.”

“At first, I thought it’s going to carry, but I don’t think (Czerneski) is going to get to it,” Medford head coach Virgil Berndt said. “Then all of a sudden she got to it and tipped it over. It might have been better that she did get to it. It probably would have been a double. What a week for Laurissa.”

For the second straight game, the Raiders, who improved to 18-6 and earned a sectional semifinal matchup at top-seeded New London, came from behind late to extend their season. Medford’s Martha Miller and Antigo’s Sam Swartz locked horns in their third low-scoring pitchers’ duel of the year with each of them holding the other team scoreless through five innings. Swartz got big outs as Medford stranded runners on second and third base in the fourth and fifth innings.

Only one Antigo hitter reached base in the first five innings against Miller, who was pitching for the first time since May 7 in her return from a hamstring injury. That runner was Makala Beck, who reached on a fourth-inning error.

In the sixth, Czerneski reached on a one-out error. Medford catcher Eryka Seidl nearly threw out Czerneski on a stolen base attempt but the ball fell out of shortstop Allie Paulson’s glove on the tag. Beck then followed with a laser to left-center that went for a double, a run batted in and Antigo’s only hit of the game.

Seidl hit a towering double to the fence in right-center with one out in the bottom half to give Medford some life. The plan was for Miller to just pitch, but she got an at-bat at that point and walked. Swartz struck out pinch hitter Jada Surek, but Medford’s leadoff hitter in Miller’s absence, Morgan Huegli, delivered her biggest hit of the season, lining a single up the middle on the first pitch to easily score Seidl from second. Paulson followed with a drive to left-center that Czerneski ran down.

“Virg said ‘up the middle’ and I was like, ‘all right I gotta do this for my coach, I gotta do this for my team,’” Huegli said. “I just got it right up the middle and I was like, ‘let’s go!’ I was so hyped.”

“It’s not that she’s missing it by much lately, but, she’s just trying to pull everything and we talked about that,” Berndt said. “It’s kind of like it’s 0-0 again at the start of the game,” Miller said of getting that all-important first run. “Now we just have to push through and push through our runs.”

“There have been glimpses of good at-bats and breaking it open at times,” Klapatauskas said. “We just couldn’t finish. We trust each other enough and we know that we can be the team that comes through in the sixth and seventh innings.”

Miller set the Robins down in order in the top of the seventh, setting the stage for Klapatauskas.

Klapatauskas went three for four in the win, while Seidl was two for three. The Raiders collected nine hits off Swartz, who struck out seven and walked two and made enough big pitches to strand 10 Raider runners.

Miller was sharp in her return, striking out 12 and walking none.

“It felt really good,” she said. “I’ve been itching to be back. After those two and a half weeks of not playing, it felt really good to get back out in the circle. I was pretty ready to go, pretty excited to be back and I just knew I had to try to pick up where I left off.”

Heading back to the sectional semifinal level where their 2021 season ended, the Raiders were excited about their chances after their dramatic wins in regional week.

“It’s nice to know that we could do it again,” Miller said of winning a second regional title. “We’ve pulled together as a team two years in a row. A lot of our team has returned from last year. I’m not saying that we had a shaky season, but it was a little less solid than last year. So to be able to pull this back out again and come together at the end is big.”

“I think it shows that we have good chemistry too,” Huegli said.

Eryka Seidl scores the tying run on Morgan Huegli’s single during Thursday’s sixth inning.

MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS