August 5, 2020 at 11:48 a.m.
They'll be crying in their beer
2010 Rebels stay hot, stun defending champs Kimberly for Legion state title
They'll be crying in their beer
By vanquishing one of its most stubborn opponents in dominating fashion, defeating Merrill 14-0 in the first round of the 2010 Wisconsin AA American Legion Baseball state tournament, the Rhinelander Post 7 Rebels atoned for games that had slipped through their grasp during the regular season and regional tournament, setting up a chain of events that would culminate four days later in a state championship.
After the Merrill win, tough games against River Falls and Holmen remained ahead for the Rebels, followed by a two-night showdown with Kimberly.
In part one of our oral history of the 2010 state champion Rebels, we looked at the Rebels' up-and-down path to the state tournament. Today, in our second installment, we relive the team's championship march.
Winning the late game on the first night of the tournament kept the Rebels in the winner's bracket and playing late in the evening. It was around 8 o'clock by the time first pitch rolled around. That was fine by the team to make the roughly 45-minute drive down U.S. Highway 51 to Merrill.
Dan Huhnstock, Rebels manager: In hindsight, the scheduling of the state tournament could not have worked any better for us. Basically every game was a late evening game. Most of them were 8 o'clock starts. Our kids, being only 45 minutes away, could sleep in their own beds every night. They could go to their jobs every day. The coaches could go to their jobs every day and you just take a leisurely ride down there in the evening to show up to play baseball. No different than any night of the week all summer long.
Alex Henkel, junior UT: We loved playing at night. That's what you looked forward to about playing Legion ball, was playing under the lights. We were used to playing at that time, all summer. That's when we were competitive.
Dan Kellen, junior OF/P/C: I think it helped that the other teams were just sitting in their hotel rooms just sitting around. I remember going fishing during the day and doing normal stuff at home to keep your mind off it and then, same time every day, get in the car, meet at the Town Pump and head down there. Nothing really changed for us.
After the emotional opening night victory over Merrill, the Rebels eked out a 5-2 win over River Falls. Kellen allowed an earned run on five hits with five strikeouts over seven innings while also hitting a home run. The next night sophomore Kyle Comer allowed three runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts and hit two home runs in a 7-3 victory over Holmen.
While those were the headlines, Rebels third-base coach John Huebner recalled the unsung role of Ben Prom - the only senior on the roster other than Sam Huebner - to help the team through those middle games of the tournament.
John Huebner: We had a couple of tough games after that where we had some key plays. There's a few plays in that tournament that I look at to this day. In that River Falls game, I look at Ben Prom. That was a tough game and he came up throwing. He made a play out in the outfield. He got a runner out at second on a force before the runner scored at home. We could have easily gotten beat that game. Then the bunt that he put down. They ended up throwing it around and I think he ended up on third base to get us going. He got us going through that portion of the tournament. Without him, we're not winning that game.
Comer: Having a guy like Ben Prom who isn't going to complain about just playing left field and not hitting. We talked about knowing your role. Ben's like, "OK, I'm going to play great defense."
Due to the unique double elimination format, the win over Holmen moved Rhinelander to 3-0 and automatically into the championship game, however it still needed to play the next night. The Rebels drew defending AA state champion Kimberly, which was in a win-or-else scenario. While the team's ace, Sam Huebner, was eligible to pitch that night under old Legion pitching rules that allowed pitchers to throw no more than 10 innings in any three-day stretch, the team decided to rest Huebner for the following night and put Troy White on the mound.
Things did not go well for Rhinelander in the first meeting. The Rebels committed five errors that night, fell behind 14-0 after three innings and needed back-to-back walks to extend the game in the fifth inning. Kellen followed with a grand slam that brought Rhinelander within 14-9, but Kimberly eventually prevailed 19-10.
John Huebner: We had a game plan. Could I have thrown Sam in that game? Yeah, I could have, but he would have been on short rest and, in my mind, there isn't a single chance they're beating us with the way Sam was pitching, and the way we were playing, if he's on full rest.
Troy White: I remember not being happy when I left the bump. The offense did not pick me up. I did not pick myself up. I remember having zero confidence going into that game, but then all the confidence in the world the next game.
Huhnstock: I think if we would have gotten beat in five innings, 10-run ruled, our guys would have been down, but I remember once we started to rally and put some runs on the board and elongated the game for them, our guys, their chins were up. There was a sparkle in their eye (saying), "We can do this. We can play with them."
Henkel: When I look back on it, and maybe my memory is misleading, it always felt like that was a "get to know you" kind of game. That was the one where we were feeling them out, seeing what they had and we learned the stuff we needed to about them that game. It was really growing the anticipation toward that final game.
Sam Huebner: It was like, "You guys can have all the fun tonight but, tomorrow, it's going to be war."
Kimberly still needed to win once more to force a winner-take-all championship game with Rhinelander. It accomplished that by beating Holmen 7-1 on the afternoon of the title game. Kimberly, the defending champions, won four straight games in the tournament to reach the finals and was playing against a team it had beaten by nine runs the night before - a team that did not even win its own regional and had only two players over the age of 18 on its roster at the start of the season. On paper, the matchup seemed to favor the Cougars, and that sense was evident prior to the game.
John Huebner: Kimberly, they're a cocky team, and they had a good team, good program. Dan (Huhnstock) and I grabbed (our players) and I was just watching them warming up and their antics. It was just another game they were going to win.
Sam Huebner: I think the biggest thing for me was seeing how cocky they were, and I was going to try to shut them up as best I could.
John Huebner: We brought them in and said, "Just take a look down there. Look at how they're approaching this game. In two hours," I said, "They're going to all be crying in their beer."
Sam Huebner was on the mound for the biggest game of his life, and it showed early. He walked a couple of batters in the first inning and worked his way out of a bases loaded jam unscathed by striking out Luke VanHandel. In the bottom half of the inning the Rebels loaded the bases, Kellen hit a sacrifice fly to give Rhinelander the lead and then VanHandel threw away a two-out grounder by Henkel, allowing the Rebels to take a 3-0 lead. The Cougars got one back in the third as the game settled into a rhythm. Huebner allowed only three hits on the night and a strong Rhinelander defense kept Kimberly from drawing any closer.
Sam Huebner: I think it was all the adrenaline. I knew I was throwing the ball faster. I could feel it. My curve ball, everything, just had a little more zip on it. It was the adrenaline. I did have some troubles throughout the game locating, but the biggest thing in that first was just getting out of there, even if we gave up one run or two, don't let it get out of hand. It definitely could have gone a little different in that first inning if we didn't get out of there. Luckily it worked out the way it did.
John Huebner: I look at (first baseman) Micah Baumgartner in that championship game. (Shortstop) Nate Schmidt, a couple of balls thrown (low), not easy hops, Micah scooped those out. Little things like that will change the dynamic of the game. Micah misses one of the two or one of the three, he scooped up every one of them. He missed one of those, we've got runners on base, that changes the whole game, especially with a team like Kimberly.
The championship game was scheduled to start at 8 p.m., but was pushed up to 7:30 due to the threat of thunderstorms. In the bottom of the fifth, with the Rebels up 3-1, a bolt from a cell skirting south of Merrill forced the teams off the field for what ended up being a 28-minute delay. The Rebels had to sit and wait, with a two-run lead in the biggest game of their lives. By this point, Sam Huebner had already thrown 103 pitches. With no pitch count rules in place at that time, and with Huebner playing in his final game in a Rhinelander uniform before heading to Southern Idaho to begin his collegiate career, it was going to take more than an act of God to force him from the mound.
Sam Huebner: The only way I wasn't going back in is if it got postponed to a different day.
Lucas Michlig, sophomore 2B: I remember there was never a doubt that Sam was going to go back on the mound. He had his winter jacket on. He was sweating, but there was no question in anyone's mind that he was going back out there.
Comer: We were just so loose in the dugout and, like Luke said, we knew Sam was going back out there. It's like, "All right, let's just sit in the dugout. We'll crush some Gatorade, talk about some girls and then we'll get back to it in 30 minutes here."
The skies eventually cleared. Kimberly got two on via a single and a walk to lead off the sixth, but Huebner dug in from there with a pair of strikeouts and a grounder to get out of the jam. Then came the Rebels' final hour - including a big rally in the bottom of the inning, and the crowing moment in the seventh.
Bryan Kronberger reached on a bunt single to get things going and Schmidt drew a walk. Huebner lined a shot into right center for a two-out RBI single and the floodgates opened from there as part of a six-run rally. Schmidt scored on a wild pitch, Kellen added an RBI single and Henkel followed with a slicer to right, officially scored as an error, that brought home two by a stingy Merrill scorekeeper.
To this day, Henkel contends it was a double.
Eventually, White came to the plate as the potential game-clinching run and hit a blast to left that was ruled an RBI double off the top of the wall. Athletic Park has a metal fence installed for high school and legion play, but the facade of the structure is an eight-foot high granite wall erected by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. According to John Huebner, White's shot hit off the top of the stone wall, roughly 30 feet beyond the outfield fence, and bounced back into the field of play for what should have been a title-clinching home run.
John Huebner: There were four people sitting out in lawn chairs in left field and immediately they took their hand up and did the old whirly bird, the home run (signal), and I'm like, "Gosh, that ball did go."
Perhaps it was better that the umpires did not see White's shot go over the fence, as it set up one of the most iconic moments in Rhinelander baseball history. Staked to a 9-1 lead, Sam Huebner retired the first two batters he faced before giving up a two-out single to Will Randerson. Clean-up hitter Sam Rein was next, and the first pitch he saw turned into a soft fly ball to shallow right. It was heading into the hole between White in right field and Michlig at second.
White: It went up and I thought I had it and then, as I was sprinting as fast as I could - because my only goal when the ball went up was to sprint and decide what I was going to do once I got three seconds from impact - but it's like, "I'm not getting there."
Michlig: I dropped a routine pop up right to me in the seventh inning of one of those (regional) games (against Merrill) and pop ups have kind of been a nightmare my whole life. It's just not my cup of tea. That play I was playing deep and I took one look at Troy. I knew he wasn't going to get there and I just ran and dove.
White: He just dove in front of me out of the blue, I was expecting to be scooping it up. I never saw him.
Michlig: The ball was so close to coming out of my glove. It went in the pocket but, when I hit the ground, it came all the way out. There was half the ball showing.
Huhnstock: Lucas went back and made a heck of a play on that ball. It's just like, 'Oh my gosh, we did it!' It was just such a sense of relief.
Michlig: It's weird how I can remember every step of catching that ball and then getting up. Troy was right there and then I think Schmidty and Micah came out to right. Everyone else was on the pitcher's mound and our two piles condensed after a little bit. I had my own little pile, but then we all headed to the mound.
Kellen: Honestly, I didn't even know who caught the ball. As soon as I heard everyone go crazy, I just ran out and mobbed Sammy. That was something else.
Comer: Talk about not knowing what to do. You put in all that work and finally the game is over. I think everyone, for a split second there, was like, 'Oh, (expletive), what do we do now?' That's my one and only dog pile and I'll never forget it. There's no rhyme or reason to it. All of a sudden, you're just hugging everybody. I remember two separate piles for a second and then everybody comes back in. What a time.
John Huebner: The best part was watching the kids react. This isn't about the coaches, Dan and I. These guys are the ones that did this. We just kind of sat back in the dugout. That, to me, was the best part of the whole game, just watching the reaction of those kids. It was special to watch.
In the final installment of this series, which will be published in Tuesday's River News, we chronicle the aftermath of that state championship and the team's legacy.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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