Wildcats fall to Redmen in sectional

By Casey Krautkramer

There can be a little luck involved in baseball. In some games everything goes right for a team, for example, its batters are hitting ground balls through holes in the opposing defense. On another day, the team’s batters will be hitting the ball directly to opposing fielders every time. Tuesday just wasn’t the Edgar varsity baseball team’s day in the team’s 6-2 loss to Rib Lake in the WIAA Division 4 sectional semifinal played in Bruce.

Junior pitcher and shortstop Leyton Schuett said his team had its opportunities against Rib Lake.

“I thought we hit the ball hard,” he said. “We put the ball in play a lot, but we just happened to hit it to their guys every time. They put the ball in play and just found the gaps on us.”

Schuett did belt a home run against the Redmen in the sectional semifinal game.

“Yeah, that felt good,” he said. “I thought it was going to give us a little momentum boost and we were going to start hitting the ball, putting it in play, and we did, but we kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit when we got thrown out.”

Schuett wished that his team would’ve been able to play against Rib Lake during the regular season to get a feel for how they played, but the game was cancelled.

“It would’ve been nice to play them during the regular season,” he said. “We would have known what they’re gonna do, like what type of pitches they’re going to try, what they’re going to hit and if they’re going to do all that small ball stuff. That would have been nice to know some of that coming in.”

There were high expectations for Edgar’s baseball team going into this season because the Wildcats brought back the majority of its team, including its entire pitching staff, from last year’s team that played in the state baseball tournament for the first time in school history. It was a rough regular season for Edgar, however, as the team lost six games including two against tough Division 3 squads Auburndale, Marathon and Stratford. The Wildcats returned to their winning ways once the playoffs began and the team was playing against competition in a lower division.

“We played in a tough conference, and we had six losses in conference, but at the end of the day it just makes us a lot better and more battled tested. Once we got into the playoffs and faced off against smaller schools, you could see how good we really are.”

Despite Tuesday’s sectional semifinal loss to Rib Lake, Schuett said Edgar’s high school baseball program has defi-

See EDGAR BASEBALL SECTIONAL/ page 24

D-TRAIN TRIES TO DIG OUT A SINGLE- Edgar junior Dakota Ellenbecker runs toward first base after hitting the baseball during Tuesday’s 6-2 WIAA Division 4 sectional semifinal loss to Rib Lake in Bruce. PHOTO BY ROSS PATTERMANN

JUST OVER THE TOP OF THE BASEBALL- Edgar senior first baseman Marcus Huehnerfuss swings just over the pitch against Rib Lake on Tuesday in Bruce. He provided the Wildcat withe a steady glove at first base during the past few seasons.

PHOTO BY ROSS PATTERMANN

Leyton Schuett Edgar baseball sectional

Continued from page 16

nitely experienced a lot of success in recent seasons.

“I feel like the program has definitely turned a corner, especially the past four years,” he said. You’re starting to see that, and I think a season like this really shows. We didn’t win conference and the season didn’t end the way we wanted, but we got new hardware going in the case and this was definitely still a good season.”

Five of Edgar’s 14 players on this year’s team are seniors who graduated this spring. Those five seniors are Preston Dahlke, Brett Baumgartner, Marcus Huehnerfuss, Corey Schilling and Harrison Graveen. Schuett is thankful for their contributions to the baseball team.

“The seniors, we got a lot of memories playing with them, over 10 years,” he said. “It’s going to be tough without them next year, but they taught us a lot and the game today is going to be motivation for next year.”

Edgar concludes its season with a 13-9 record. Rib Lake lost to Northwood/ Solon Springs, 10-2, in the Division 4 sectional championship later on Tuesday. Northwood/Solon Springs, 18-1, will make its first trip as a co-op to the state tournament. Rib Lake ends their season with an 18-6 record.

Regional champions

Edgar’s baseball team beat Flambeau, 13-4, in last Wednesday’s WIAA Division 4 regional championship in Flambeau.

Apfelbeck outlined the key to No. 6 seed beating higher-seeded teams in the playoffs on the road last week to win back-to-back regional titles.

“We kind of went back to our thoughts of last year being underdogs having more fun and saying we don’t care who we are playing against,” he said. “We just went out there and beat them and had fun doing it.”

STEADY BACKSTOP- Edgar sophomore catcher Lucas Stahnke gets ready to snap a throw back to the pitcher during the team’s 6-2 loss to Rib Lake in Tuesday’s WIAA Division 4 sectional semifinal in Bruce.

PHOTO BY ROSS PATTERMANN

ATTEMPTING TO KEEP THE REDMEN AT BAY- Edgar junior Jase Apfelbeck goes into his pitching motion while keeping a close watch on Rib Lake’s base runner on second base during the Wildcats sectional semifinal defeat.

PHOTO BY ROSS PATTERMANN