Rib Lake baseball program announces its 2023 post-season team awards
Rib Lake head baseball coach Dick Iverson announced his squad’s 2023 team awards, which were presented in a team gathering last week. Most awards are voted on by both coaches and players.
The awards follow a 10-8 season that included a 6-4 record in the Marawood North, good for a second-place tie with Phillips. Abbotsford-Colby won the conference with a 10-0 record. Unfortunately, Rib Lake’s season ended a little earlier than expected with a 12-4 upset loss to Glenwood City in the regional semifinal round of the WIAA Division 4 post-season tournament.
Junior Jackson Blomberg won the Most Valuable Player award and was the winner of two statistical awards as well. Blomberg won the award for highest batting average at .370 and the award for most runs batted in with 22.
Blomberg and senior Michael Blomberg earned Captains Awards for the 2023 season. Blomberg and Andrew Wudi, who also will be a senior next year were voted as the 2024 captains by their teammates.
Freshman Talon Scheithauer won the award for the lowest earned run average among pitchers. He posted a 2.07 ERA in 20.1 innings pitched. He also earned the Hustle Award.
“We had eight out of 13 people get votes for that award, which was kind of nice,” Iverson said.
Blomberg also received All-District honorable mention from the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association in addition to his first-team All-Marawood North selection. Borchardt also was a first-team All-North selection.
Junior centerfielder Dominic Quednow was named winner of the Best Defense award by his teammates while freshman infielder/catcher Ethan Cook was named the season’s Most Improved Player.
“Considering we started four freshmen for most of the year, we went 10-8 against a very tough schedule, 6-4 in our league, so I think we had a good year,” Iverson said. “The Marawood was pretty tough this year. Marathon made the sectional final in D3. Edgar finished fourth in their league and went to state. Phillips had a nice team. It was a very good conference this year for the Marawood North and South. Finishing tied for second was pretty good.”
Rib Lake hit a respectable .283 as a team overall in 18 games and posted a strong team ERA of 3.33.
“I think the biggest disappointment this year was that we lost so many games to the weather,” Iverson said. “It was tough for the kids to stay focused and excited when they weren’t playing. It’s very difficult to practice inside that long. Then when we did finally have a chance to play either rain popped up or snow popped up. We tried to do three different scrimmages that we never got in. We lost our La Crosse trip. We didn’t play on our home field until almost May.
Looking ahead to 2024, Iverson said having five pitchers with varsity experience should be a strength. Building some depth is a focus this summer with the Legion team.
“I want to thank all of my assistant coaches, Gary Hohl, Ryan Scheithauer, Brad Borchardt and Paul Yanko and my managers for helping out this year,” Iverson said. “Thank you to my wife (Teri) and everyone who helped with the field, especially Jack Buksa.”
