Freshmen add to Rib Lake’s experienced baseball core

A year ago, longtime Rib Lake baseball head coach Dick Iverson started the season with what he called his smallestever roster with 13 players.

This year, the roster is larger by one body, but now it’s probably the youngest Iverson has ever had with 50% of the 14 players being freshmen.

That isn’t stopping the Redmen from thinking they’ll be competitive yet again in the Marawood North and, by season’s end, in the WIAA Division 4 tournament.

Three of Rib Lake’s freshmen have a wealth of baseball experience and will slide right into starting roles, according to Iverson. They’ll join a handful of veterans who also have played a lot of baseball in their young lives and bring some motivation into this year after falling one win shy of berth in last year’s Division 4 state tournament.

“We still have a lot of experience,” Iverson said last week. “Andrew Wudi is a three-year starter, Jackson Blomberg is a three-year starter and Michael has been starting forever, it seems.”

Rib Lake hoped to get its season started by traveling to southern locales, but the annual triangular with North Crawford and De Soto on Saturday was canceled due to weather as was a nonconference game with Spencer that was going to be played in Wisconsin Rapids Tuesday. The Redmen will try again today, Thursday. They plan to play Pittsville at Babcock.

Marawood North play should begin Monday at the turf complex in Wisconsin Rapids when Rib Lake plays Chequamegon in a doubleheader that starts at 3 p.m. After that, it’s anybody’s guess at this point when the season will get into full swing thanks to another extended winter in northern Wisconsin.

Rib Lake is coming off a 13-8 season that included a second-place finish in the Marawood North at 7-3, two games behind Abbotsford-Colby, whose only league loss came to the Redmen. The Redmen went on a post-season run, defeating Prentice, Athens and Thorp in regional play and Newman Catholic 6-1 in a sectional semifinal at Gillett before falling 5-0 to Columbus Catholic in the sectional final.

That team graduated four seniors, all of whom earned some kind of All-Marawood North post-season honor.

This year’s group is led by captains Michael Borchardt and Jackson Blomberg.

Both will fill similar duties. They will pitch, catch and play middle infield and Blomberg is penciled in to be the team’s number- three hitter in the order, while Borchardt will hit clean-up.

Borchardt was a firstteam All-North pick last spring after hitting .333 and going 4-3 with a 2.19 earned run average in just under 44 innings. Blomberg was placed on the All-North second team in 2022 after he hit .323 in league play and was at .274 overall. He wound up being the team’s primary catcher and logged just under 17 pitching innings too.

Andrew Wudi, a junior, will be another important veteran piece to this year’s puzzle. An honorable mention All-North award winner last year, he should see time at third base, second base and shortstop, could pitch and also is the team’s number-two centerfielder. He’ll start the year hitting second in the batting order. He hit .276 in North play last year and had a .462 on-base percentage in those games.

“He’ll be kind of a jack of all trades,” Iverson said.

Junior Dominic Quednow is the team’s starting centerfielder, but the lefty will also get some pitching work. He played rightfield for the Redmen last year and really made strides in the second half of last season. He’s slated to hit fifth. Senior Dalen Gebauer and sophomore Brady Heiser are leading candidates for time at first base and/or designated hitter. Both came up with some big hits at times last year, especially late. Sophomore Tyler Matyka is back and begins the year as Rib Lake’s starting leftfielder. The leadoff batter will be freshman Talon Scheithauer, who Iverson said is ready to take on a large role as a middle infielder. Freshman Seth Borchardt has the starting spot in rightfield to start the year and freshman Ethan Cook starts at second base. Cook also is being groomed as the team’s third catcher, if needed. For many teams, that would make coaches nervous, but this trio has been around the varsity for several years as managers and has gotten plenty of practice reps over the years. “Between Legion, Dairyland and Babe Ruth, Talon probably played 50 games last summer,” Iverson said. “It’s pretty much the same with Seth and Ethan.” Among the luxuries Iverson has with this team is its versatility. Not many teams have four players who could all play the middle infield, pitch and catch. But in a small-school pro-gram with dwindling numbers, those kinds of players are necessary to be successful.

Blomberg and Scheithauer are also working at switch hitting in pre-season camp to add some different looks to the lineup.

“With pitching and catching we’re deep,” Iverson said. “I’m pretty confident in the infield. Even though we’re young, we’re starting freshmen with Talon and Ethan up the middle, they’re not bad. They’ll be fine.”

Four more freshmen, Joseph Treffinger, Chris Krause, Aiden Stapleton and Zach Olson fill out the roster with Treffinger likely being the one closest to being ready to contribute at the varsity level. Iverson said the hope is to get some JV games scheduled so the younger players on the roster can get game reps and so players like Cook and Seth Borchardt can get some innings on the mound.

In the Marawood North, Abbotsford-Colby is the odds-on favorite to repeat as conference champions. The team brings

MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS

back almost everyone from its 2021-22 squad that went 13-10 overall, including North Player of the Year JV Castillo, who is a junior.

Chequamegon and Athens tied for third place in the North last year with 6-4 records. Rib Lake swept the Screaming Eagles and took two of three from Athens. Phillips (2-8, 4-17) and Prentice (0-10, 1-19) have work to do to crack the league’s upper half.

Even though Rib Lake is located just minutes away from a WIAA Division 4 sectional site at Athens, the Redmen have been assigned to the state’s northwest sectional this year and starts out in half-bracket that features some typically strong programs like Eau Claire Regis, McDonell Central and Thorp. Regis is number-one in the pre-season Division 4 rankings. Northwood-Solon Springs on the other side is ranked fourth. Rib Lake is ranked 10th.

The sectional tournament is set to be played in Webster on June 6.

Coach Paul Yanko works with Rib Lake’s catchers during practice March 29.