July 21, 2014 at 2:50 p.m.
Hodag 10U Little Leaguers heading to state again
Hodag 10U Little Leaguers heading to state again
The Hodags punched their ticket to state Friday afternoon with a 8-3 victory over Wausau American at Hodag Park.
The win capped a stellar run through the district tournament for Rhinelander, who went undefeated with wins over the teams that finished second, third and fourth in the seven-team tournament.
"We got a good group of kids here and really a good group of families," said manager Craig Orth. "The parents are all real supportive and getting them to practice. We started out, a lot of them, as the Raiders traveling team and have played together for a while. We picked up a few other kids, but otherwise, we've been playing together for awhile and everything just worked out."
Rhinelander defeated the Americans 7-5 on Wednesday to advance to the title game. Wausau American defeated Wausau National Thursday in an elimination game to get another crack at Rhinelander. With a win, Wausau American would have forced a winner-take-all championship game, but the Hodags slammed the door on that notion, breaking open a 3-3 tie with a five-run fifth inning.
Isaac Bixby nearly went the distance on the hill, scattering four hits over 5 2/3 innings before reaching the Little League-mandated limit of 75 pitches. He also drove in what proved to be the winning runs in the fifth with a flare to left that scored Tim Fox and Devyn Orth.
Bixby went to second on the play and Wausau decided to intentionally walk Joe Schneider to get to Jacksen Smith. Smith responded with a base hit past second base to score Bixby. Two batters later San Schneider singled to score Joe Schneider. Smith also scored on the play when the ball was mishandled in left field.
"Clutch hits there at the end," Craig Orth said. "These kids have done that pretty much all season so far getting here. We've gotten hits when we needed to. We left some runners on a couple times on second and third, but we hit from top to bottom. It's like I told (No. 9 hitter) Jake Losch, he's my No. 9 leadoff."
The Hodags twice stranded a runner on second and also stranded a runner on third in the championship game, but those were the only runners they left on base.
The Hodags jumped out to an early 2-0 lead thanks in part to back-to-back-to-back hits by Orth, Bixby and Joe Schneider. Smith added an RBI groundout. Rhinelander tacked on a run in the second as Cole Lehman singled down the first base line and scored when Tim Fox's single got by right fielder Blake Nichols.
Wausau began to claw its way back in the third. Nichols doubled down the left field line to scored Landon Parlier, who led off the inning with a hit. Jacob Pfiffner then scored on a safety squeeze bunt by Mason Prey.
Parlier tied the game in the fifth. He reached on a error, stole second, advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a wild pitch.
The rallies in the third and the fifth were the only real scoring opportunities the Americans had. They were caught stealing in the first and the fourth and Bixby settled into a groove late. He struck out four batters - including three of the final four he faced - and walked only two. Smith came on to get the final out, fanning Tyler Skogstad.
There was no dogpile celebration afterward, just a lot of toothy grins from the kids.
"They are a good group of kids and they deserve this," Orth said. "They worked hard and we've drilled them pretty hard in our practice sessions training for this and they do what you tell them to do."
Bixby also started Wednesday's game, but the team managed his pitch count so that he was eligible to return Friday. In fact, the Hodags had their full complement of pitchers available, while the Americans had to burn some of their pitching just to reach the finals.
"That worked out well for us," Orth said. "We are fortunate on this team to have seven, eight, nine - really all of our starters can pitch. We didn't have to go that deep because we won three in a row to get to the championship."
Now the Hodags will prepare for the state tournament, which will take place Aug. 2-8 in the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale. Four of the members of Rhinelander's 13-player roster were part of last year's state tournament team - Fox, Bixby, Joe Schneider and Smith. Orth said that experience has helped the team during this run.
"We hope that's going to help us out a lot more when we get down to state, but I think it helped out," he said. "We've got good leadership on this team. We've got a good handful of kids who step up and want to be leaders. Anytime you have that, that's great on any team - be it baseball, basketball or football."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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