Walking off into the next round

Staring at a four-run seventh-inning deficit and a very quick post-season exit Tuesday, the Medford Raiders’ first goal was to get a base runner or two and get Rice Lake ace right-hander Easton Stone to his 100-pitch limit.

They did that, one big swing from Braxton Weissmiller tied it and Max Dietzman’s ground ball that Stone couldn’t handle set off the celebration as Medford kept its magical 2024 season alive with an 8-7 WIAA Division 2 regional semifinal win over eighth-seeded and upset-minded Rice Lake (6-16) at Raider Field.

The 23-3 and top-seeded Raiders advanced to the regional final against fourth-seeded Ashland (15-13), played Wednesday after the deadline for this week’s issue of The Star News.

“It’s absolutely huge,” said Weissmiller, whose three-run double over the head of Rice Lake centerfielder Tanner Koltunski set the Raiders up with a chance to win it. “It’s just one of those things where I knew all of the seniors, when we got to the bottom of the seventh, we said we weren’t done yet. We wanted to play tomorrow.”

“These kids find ways to win games,” Medford head coach Justin Hraby said. “I am not sure how sometimes, but it is fun to be associated with this group. They battled and grinded in that seventh inning, got Stone out, and then put it away.”

The rally started innocently with pinch hitter Charlie Gierl swinging at Stone’s first offering of the inning and beating out a dribbler into no-man’s land between the pitcher’s mound and first base. Senior Jack Wojcik worked the count full and slapped a single to center and number-nine hitter Evan Wilkins hit into a fielder’s choice that eliminated Wojcik at second, but also got Medford to its goal of having base runners with a new pitcher to face.

That new pitcher was Kalvin Kelsey. He couldn’t find the strike zone, walking Tanner Hraby and Parker Lissner to force in a run and bring Weissmiller to the plate.

“Tanner told me right before that atbat, he hasn’t thrown a curveball yet and he isn’t locating his fastball,” Weissmiller said, adding this was the biggest hit he could recall ever getting as a baseball player. “In my mind, I’m just thinking, well he’s going to miss over the plate one of these times. He definitely missed over the plate and I got it. It was just see the ball, hit the ball hard and see what happens and I got it.”

Rice Lake intentionally walked Carson Carbaugh to set up a potential double play, and the Warriors got the ground ball they were looking for from Nick Steliga. But, they only got the force on Carbaugh for the second out of the inning. That brought Dietzman to the plate. He fouled off two pitches before his grounder ate up Stone, now playing at shortstop, allowing Weissmiller to score the winning run.

“It was pretty evident that he had been struggling, trying to hit the plate,” Dietzman said. “I was thinking I can match up to the velocity pretty easily so

I have a little bit of time to see what I’m looking at before I swing. He threw me two of them and I didn’t match up to either one of them. What am I going to do now if I go down swinging? I was kind of just waiting for whatever came. In the moment, you’re not really thinking. He gave me another one and luckily on the third one I matched it up. It wouldn’t have been a hit, but it got us the win, which is all I needed to hear.”

The five-run rally snatched victory from what was looking like a potential defeat since the fourth inning. Rice Lake led 1-0 two batters into the game on a single by Aaron Hoffman and Kelsey’s double, but Medford came right back in the bottom of the first, getting an RBI groundout from Weissmiller and a two-run, RBI single from Steliga to go up 2-1.

But the Warriors gave Stone, an allstate football and wrestling state qualifier this year as well as Rice Lake’s top pitcher by far, a three-run lead to work with in the fourth. Two singles and a walk set up Koltunski’s sacrifice fly, Hoffman’s goahead single and a single by Kelsey that scored a run and another one was added when Medford tried to throw out Hoffman at third at the end of the play, but he instead bolted for home and made it.

Hraby doubled and scored on Lissner’s single in the fifth, but Rice Lake turned a two-out error by Medford in the sixth into two bases-loaded walks that ended the day for Hraby, Medford’s starting pitcher, and put the Raiders in their 7-3 hole.

“Honestly, when we knew we were going to take Stone out and we knew how Lakeland hung around with them (a 4-2 loss in Thursday’s regional quarterfinal), we knew that we had a chance,” Weissmiller said. “I give props to our bench players, they’re not getting in a lot but they’re keeping the dugout energized. It just keeps us going and helps our team chemistry a lot.”

“It’s really fun,” Dietzman said. “They’re a great team. Stone is a great player. We came into this game knowing we were going to go against him and knowing we were going to have to grind as a team, top to bottom, throughout the order and that’s what we did.”

Weissmiller finished two for four on four hard-hit balls with two doubles and four runs batted in.

“(Stone) throws a decent fastball,” he said. “He’s got a good breaking ball, but I knew he’d throw his fastball early so that’s what I was waiting for. See the fastball early and crush the fastball.”

Lissner was two for two and drew two walks. Medford outhit Rice Lake 8-6.

Hraby went 5.2 innings and allowed six hits and seven runs, five of which were earned. He struck out six and walked seven, though three of those were intentional walks to Stone, much to the chagrin of the Rice Lake faithful. He also hit two batters.

Hayden Strebig got the relief win, retiring all four batters he faced, including two by strikeout.

“Rice Lake came ready to play and jumped all over us early and often,” Justin Hraby said. “Hayden Strebig did a great job of coming in in a rough spot. He held them down for the last couple innings and gave us a chance to come back.”

Stone allowed seven hits and three earned runs in his 6.1 innings. He struck out seven and walked only one. Hoffman and Kelsey were both two for three atop Rice Lake’s order.

Wednesday’s regional final winner advanced to the sectional tournament, set for Tuesday at Baldwin-Woodville. The Ashland/Medford winner will face either seventh-seeded Merrill or third-seeded Abbotsford-Colby in the 10 a.m. semifinal. The championship game is slated for 4 p.m. after the 1 p.m. semifinal which will feature the Altoona/St. Croix Falls winner versus the La Crosse Logan/Prescott winner.

Medford 3, Pittsville 1

In the regular-season finale Thursday, Pittsville outhit Medford 11-6, but those hits were all singles and the Raiders made a couple of key defensive plays to limit the Panthers to just one seventh-inning run in a 3-1 victory.

Medford, the ninth-ranked team in Division 2, finished its regular season at 22-3, while Pittsville, ranked second in Division 4, closed at 21-3. Both teams got solid starting pitching Thursday with Medford just being able to take better advantage of its chances, scoring single runs in the first, second and fifth innings.

The first run came without a hit. Hraby was hit by Pittsville pitcher Logan Zickert to lead off the bottom of the first, stole second, moved to third on a passed ball and scored on a botched pickoff attempt. Steliga walked to lead off the second. He moved to second on Dietzman’s single. Both runners advanced on Ryder Kraschnewski’s groundout and Steliga scored on Wojcik’s infield single to the left side.

Wojcik blooped a leadoff single to shallow right in the fifth, moved to second on a passed ball and scored on Hraby’s single up the middle for a 3-0 lead.

Hraby pitched five scoreless innings to get the win. He worked around seven hits and a walk, striking out five. Pittsville stranded one runner in each of the first three innings and left two on in the fourth. Carbaugh made a lunging catch in leftfield to rob Zickert of a hit in the fifth, which loomed large when the Panthers loaded the bases with one out. Hraby ended his outing by inducing a 6-4-3 double play from Braden Friday to end the threat.

The Panthers let another threat get away in the sixth when Strebig struck out two batters and Weissmiller, Medford’s catcher, picked Darren Luther off second base to end the inning. The Panthers got two hits and an RBI groundout by Brad Neve in the seventh.

Strebig struck out three and allowed four hits in his two innings.

“Tanner was steady on the mound for us, and our defense was good behind him allowing us to shut down a good offensive team,” Justin Hraby said. “Hayden came in and did the job the last two innings.”

Zickert went five innings for Pittsville, striking out seven and walking two. He allowed five hits and all three runs, two of which were earned. Dawson Luther pitched a scoreless sixth, allowing a hit and a walk. He also went three for three with a walk at the plate.

Dietzman and Wojcik both went two for two for the Raiders.