‘JUST KEEP FIGHTING’
POST 147 CLAIMS ANOTHER REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Post 147 battles back from opening loss to win regional title
In a four-day span, there were several points where Medford’s American Legion Post 147 baseball team could’ve folded and called it a summer while hosting the Class AA double-elimination regional tournament.
But in their minds, throwing in the towel was not an option, and that’s why Medford is back at a Wisconsin American Legion state tournament for the fourth time in five seasons.
Down 3-1 through five innings and with frustrations mounting after some bad breaks in the fifth in Monday’s championship game with Merrill Post 46, Medford regrouped and put up a zero defensively in the top of the sixth. Then in the bottom half, the team put together a string of quality at-bats and finally broke through with four runs –– just enough to pull out a 5-4 win.
“Our team battles,” said Parker Lissner, who hit the go-ahead single with two outs in the sixth and picked up the pitching save by getting the last out in the seventh. “We’re a really tough team. We keep battling and battling. Just keep fighting. We’re all buddies.”
“We don’t let our head go down,” said Logan Kawa, who had two of the team’s biggest at-bats in the tournament. “It’s fun playing with each other which makes it so much easier to do.”
Two thrilling wins over Merrill to close out the regional are sending Medford to the eight-team, doubleelimination Class AA state tournament hosted by Ashwaubenon this weekend. Post 147’s first game is Friday at 4 p.m. against New London. The winner plays at 4 p.m. on Saturday while the loser will try to avoid elimination at 10 a.m. on Saturday with Pulaski and River Falls being the potential second-game opponents.
Not only did Medford win Sunday’s 11-inning, 6-5 nailbiter over Merrill and Monday’s winner-take-all final, Post 147 fought off elimination all weekend after opening the tournament Friday with an 8-1 loss to Rhinelander.
“I don’t think there was one time where we actually got down on ourselves as a team,” first baseman Max Dietzman said. “I don’t think there was one doubt that we could win this thing.”
“After losing our first game, we talked about the opportunity to play more games,” head coach Justin Hraby said. “The boys grinded and got better as the weekend went on. Such a special group of young men. I have been lucky enough to have coached most of these guys since they started playing. In what may be one of the last summers for all of them together, this is a fitting way to end our 2023 baseball season.”
It’s no secret that winning a post-season tournament in American Legion baseball requires pitching depth. After forcing a second game with Merrill thanks to Sunday’s win, Medford was able to bring in its ace in the hole, Logan Baumgartner, for Monday’s matchup, but for five innings, he was matched pitch-for-pitch by Merrill Connor Cortright.
Cortright got Merrill on the board first with a booming double in the top of the opening inning that scored Sam Reimann, who had singled with one out. Medford countered in the bottom half with Tanner Hraby reaching on an error, Lissner singling him to third and Baumgartner lifting a sacrifice fly to center. Medford loaded the bases, but Cortright got Nick Steliga to hit into a double play, indicative of how the first five innings went for Medford offensively.
Merrill took the lead in the top of the fourth. Baumgartner walked Brady Kanitz and Nate Brzoznowski and was ruled to have nicked Tyson Glisch with a pitch to load the bases with no outs. Braiden Voigt drove in one with a fielder’s choice and Brady Norton hit an RBI single, but a strikeout and groundout limited the damage to those two runs. In the bottom of the fifth, a call at first base went against Medford for the first out and that was followed by singles from Lissner and Baumgartner. But Braxton Weissmiller lined a bullet right to Kanitz at first base for an easy unassisted double play.
It seemed at the time, nothing was going to go Medford’s way.
“We just kept battling, just kept hitting the ball hard, putting it in play,” Lissner said. “Good things happen when you hit the ball hard.”
The first hit of the sixth-inning rally actually wasn’t hit all that hard, but it found the right spot as Dietzman hit a soft grounder up the middle that went for an infield single. Nick Steliga hit a solid single to left to bring up Kawa, whose clutch two-out, two-strike infield single in the seventh inning sent Sunday’s game with Merrill to extra innings.
Kawa fell behind 0-2 by fouling off two bunts, but kept battling through a 13-pitch at-bat that finally ended with a walk and ended Cortright’s pitching outing.
“I don’t know what was going on,” Kawa said. “I just kept swinging. That’s what I tried to do. Some of the swings were probably questionable.”
“That was huge,” Tanner Hraby said. “That got all the momentum on our side. It kind of flattened them. They had to bring in a new pitcher then. I think that at-bat changed the game.”
The hard-throwing Reimann took over and got ahead of Carson Carbaugh 0-2 before Carbaugh put a ball in play and got an RBI with a fielder’s choice. Reimann struck out Jack Wojcik, but Hraby came through with a solid single up the middle to drive in Steliga with the tying run.
“I was just hoping to get a fastball,” Hraby said. “They said (Reimann’s) had control issues, but he was locked in tonight. He threw strikes. That wasn’t the issue. But I wanted to see one and he threw a curveball and missed. So I figured a fastball was coming and he threw it down the middle. I wasn’t trying to hit it hard. I just wanted to get one through, hit a liner and make something happen.”
Lissner followed with a base hit to right-center that scored Carbaugh from second and sent Hraby to third, which was key when Baumgartner beat out an infield hit deep into the hole at short to score Hraby.
“I was just trying to hit the ball hard. Just try to hit a gap,” Lissner said. “I know Carbs isn’t the slowest guy. If I put it in a gap, he’ll score. Tanner was on first. He’s fast too and him making it to third was big.”
“Clutch hitting in the sixth got us over the hump,” coach Hraby said. “Carson putting a ball in play to score a run, Tanner, Parker and Logan with huge two-out hits. The boys came through when it mattered most.”
Things were far from finished as Baumgartner neared his pitch count limit with the top of Merrill’s order coming to bat in the top of the seventh.
Isaak Clapper led off by getting plunked with a pitch and Reimann hit a bad-hop single to bring up Cortright, who banged another double to drive in Clapper, but Medford cut down Reimann at the plate for a big first out. Cortright, though, advanced to third, putting the tying run 90 feet away.
Knowing Kanitz would likely be his last hitter, Baumgartner struck him out on a big 3-2 pitch for the second out. Lissner was called upon to try to get the final out and, after hitting Brzoznowski with a pitch, he did it by getting Glisch to pop out to Baumgartner at third.
“My heart was racing a little there,” Lissner said. “But I knew we had Bummy, Tanner and Nick on the infield and our outfield is good. I knew our defense was wound up good. I was just trying to throw strikes.”
“Parker came in and did what he had to do at the end of the game,” coach Hraby said. “Throw a strike and let our defense get the 21st out. Parker had a great weekend. He was probably one of our best hitters and defensively was flawless at third and short.”
Lissner was three for three and was hit by a pitch to reach base in all four plate appearances. Baumgartner was two for three as Medford outhit Merrill 9-8. Baumgartner struck out nine, walked two and hit two while allowing four earned runs and eight hits in 6.2 innings.
Cortright and Reimann both went three for four for Merrill. Cortright allowed six hits and three runs, two earned, while striking out three, walking three and hitting one in five-plus innings. Reimann allowed three hits and two runs while striking out two in the sixth.
“They were good,” Tanner Hraby said of the two games with Merrill. “They had pitching. They played well. You have to give them credit. I think we played just a little bit better and got a couple more key hits. I think that was the big thing. They left a couple runners on.”
It’s been a busy summer for most of the players as they’ve put it in work in multiple sports getting ready for the new school year, which for many starts with football practice next week. But they’re going to savor this accomplishment this week.
“It definitely showed how we mold together as a team, that we have so many going and doing other stuff, but we can still have a strong Legion team and we have enough of a team aspect to come back and glue it together like we did,” Dietzman said. “The goal is to win state, but we just want to play good ball,” Lissner said.
“And have fun while we’re doing it too,” Kawa said.
Tanner Hraby rounds second base and heads for third on Parker Lissner’s base hit during the fifth inning of Friday’s 8-1 loss to Rhinelander.PHOTOS BY MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS
Medford catcher Braxton Weissmiller shifts to his left and tags out Merrill’s Sam Reimann, preventing the tying run from scoring in the top of the seventh inning in Monday’s Class AA regional championship game. Reimann tried to score from first on Connor Cortright’s double, which scored one run. Cortright got to third on the play, but was stranded, giving Medford the 5-4 win.
Members of Medford’s American Legion Post 147 lead the flag ceremony before Medford’s baseball game against Rhinelander’s Post 7 team Friday at Jaycee Field.
