Mother Nature ends tight game in Rib Lake early Monday

DAIRYLAND LEAGUE SMALL

For eight innings, a sizable crowd at Rib Lake’s Tannery Creek Parkway was treated to an excellent Dairyland League baseball game with good pitching, good defense and what was going to be a last at-bat win for somebody.

Unfortunately, the ending will have to wait for another day.

The Interwald Woodticks and Rib Lake Osprey were tied 1-1 Monday night in the top of the ninth inning when the dark clouds that had loomed over the field for about a half-hour finally let loose with a deluge that quickly put the field and its surrounding area under inches of standing water.

The game was suspended and, for a time, was tentatively planned to resume Tuesday afternoon. Those plans were scuttled, however, and the game will be completed at a date to be announced. Rib Lake’s fireworks show also planned for Monday evening, were postponed due to the poorly-timed storm.

Before the storm, pitchers Peter Devine of Interwald and Bryant Konieczny of Rib Lake were in command, allowing few scoring chances and getting help from their defenses when they did run into trouble.

Interwald took a 1-0 lead in the top of the fifth. Logan Blomberg led off with a walk and came all the way around to score when Sam Gumz hit a sharp single to center that was misplayed for Rib Lake’s only error of the first eight innings.

With the darkest clouds rolling in, Rib Lake finally tied the game in the bottom of the eighth. Levi Ewan smacked a one-out double to left-center and Austin Ewan pushed a single just past Interwald shortstop Dalton Strebig to put runners on the corners. Austin Edwards lifted the tying sacrifice fly to center. Konieczny reached on an error and Jeff Ziembo walked to load the bases, but Devine escaped the jam by getting Steve Mann to fly out to right.

Rib Lake relief pitcher Drew Hauschild struck out Carter Scheithauer to start the ninth, then Nick Gerstberger smacked a drive toward the leftfield corner that would’ve been a home run on most days, but the gusty winds at the time blew it just foul. He did single, however, in the at-bat. Pinch-hitter Craig Scheithauer was next up but play was halted in the middle of his at-bat.

Konieczny went seven innings for Rib Lake and gave up only two hits. He struck out eight, walked three and hit one. He struck out two to get out of a twoon, one-out jam in the top of the second. Hauschild took over in the eighth and had two strikeouts for four of his outs. The other two outs came on a doubleplay ball that ended the eighth.

Devine got through all eight innings for the Woodticks. He only struck out one, but also walked only one and hit a batter. Rib Lake had seven hits to its credit when the game was stopped, including two apiece by Levi Ewan and Ziembo. In the bottom of the third, singles by Seth Mudgett and Ewan had runners on the corners with two outs for Austin Ewan. But Devine caught Ewan leaning and picked him off first base. Ewan first got caught between bases, but Mudgett then tried to score and he eventually was tagged out by Strebig at the end of a rundown between third and home plate. Rib Lake left two runners on base in the sixth and left two more on in the seventh before breaking through in the eighth.

Interwald, who is 1-1, in the Dairyland League’s Small Division, is in Tomahawk for a 6 p.m. first pitch on July 15. Rib Lake (1-2) is at Medford that same night at 7:30 p.m. This weekend is the built-in make-up weekend in the Small Division schedule.