DAIRYLAND LEAGUE LARGE DIVISION - Reds rally to tie it, but late run pushes Monsters to 4-3 win

DAIRYLAND LEAGUE LARGE DIVISION

The Whittlesey Reds’ fundraising efforts were a success Sunday with a large crowd coming out to the ballpark to support the team’s benefit event for Tom Leonhard and his family as he battles lung cancer.

The day, however, fell just short of being perfect as a two-out, eighth-inning run broke a 3-3 tie and pushed the Rhinelander River Monsters to a 4-3 win over the Reds in Dairyland League play.

Whittlesey had just fought back to tie the game with a three-run rally in the bottom of the seventh, equaling Rhinelander’s three-run third. But that was all the offense the Reds could create against the River Monsters’ Isaac Bixby, who went the distance in helping his team improve to 2-3 in the league’s Large Division.

Whittlesey fell to 1-3 in the standings. Bixby allowed just six hits and two earned runs while striking out seven Reds, walking one and hitting one. Half of the hits came in the seventh-inning rally that warmed things up for Reds’ fans on an unseasonably cool June afternoon.

Cody Loertscher started the rally with a single to shallow right, then Brandon Loertscher smacked a double over the head of leftfielder Quinn Lamers. Ben Meyer’s single to right-center scored both.

Bixby recovered with back-to-back strikeouts and appeared to be out of the inning when he got Zach Haynes to ground to short, but the throw was dropped at first base, allowing Meyer to score the tying run.

Spike Alexander, pitching for Whittlesey since the third, nearly pitched around a leadoff error in the eighth, getting a fly ball and a strikeout, but Bixby’s stolen base put him in scoring position for Tyler Bloomdahl, who came through with a worm-burner that found the hole between third and short and scored Bixby with the gamewinning run.

Whittlesey’s Jeff Kraschnewski hit a bad-hop, two-out single in the ninth, fittingly giving Darren Leonhard a chance to contribute to a last-ditch rally. But the game ended on Leonhard’s comebacker to Bixby, the fifth ground ball back to the mound he fielded in his outing.

Rhinelander stranded three runners through the first two innings but the Monsters got to Reds’ starter Nick Retterath in the third, starting with a double by Kurt Zuiker and a single by Lamers. Zuiker scored on a wild pitch. After Easton Senoraske was hit by a pitch, he and Lamers pulled off a double steal and Joe Schneider’s single scored Senoraske. That’s when Alexander came in. A passed ball scored the third run, but Rhinelander ran itself out of a potentially huge inning. With runners at the corners, Bixby, who reached on an error, left first base early, looking to entice a balk or a throw to get Schneider home. But the Reds defended it perfectly and wound out tagging Schneider out at home following a brief rundown. Bixby got to third and ended the inning by getting caught trying to steal home on the left-handed Alexander.

Alexander took an undeserved loss as he allowed five hits and one unearned run in 6.1 innings. He struck out three and walked one. Kraschnewski faced one batter in the ninth, getting Schneider to line into a double play. Retterath allowed five hits and three runs while walking one and hitting one in two-plus innings.

Zuiker and Senoraske were both two for four for Rhinelander. Six Reds had one hit apiece.

Elsewhere in the Large Division on a light weekend of action, Everest beat Rhinelander 10-3 on Saturday and Minocqua 7-2 on Sunday to go to 5-0 in league play. Whittlesey’s next league game is at home June 22 against Minocqua.