August 9, 2021 at 7:55 a.m.
Legion results parallel high school for Rhinelander baseball
Legion results parallel high school for Rhinelander baseball
Both squads found themselves only a handful of outs away from qualifying for their respective state tournaments when those dreams turned sour. The end result for the Rebels this summer was a 10-5 overall record, a runner-up finish in the Class AA Region 2 tournament, and a question mark as to what might have happened had the team not squandered a five-run lead in the sixth inning of the region championship game against Medford.
Much like in spring ball, Rhinelander had some large rallies and pulled off a couple of dramatic wins to put itself in position to make it to state. That made the defeat all the more difficult to swallow.
"It's heartbreaking," Rebels manager Dan Huhnstock said after Rhinelander lost the region championship game to Medford by allowing 11 runs in the sixth inning of an 11-6 defeat. "It's really heartbreaking. The kids worked so hard to have one bad inning ruin it."
That Rhinelander even got there was amazing. It needed to score seven runs in the seventh to defeat Merrill and avoid elimination a day earlier, and then it beat Medford for the first and only time this year, 10-1 to force a championship game.
The Merrill game marked the third time in the summer season that Rhinelander scored the tying or go-ahead run in the seventh inning or later. What's more, in four of the team's five losses, the Rebels had the tying run on base when the game concluded.
"It just tells you the kind of character that this team has. There's no quit in them. They battled to the last out," Huhnstock said.
Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.
GNLC repeat
The Rebels once again won the Great Northern Legion Conference title, though they took an unconventional path to get there.
The GNLC had an abbreviated schedule this summer due to late end to spring ball. In fact, Rhinelander was barely 24 hours removed from its sectional final loss to Denmark in high school play when it began the Legion season at home against Mosinee June 23.
The Rebels went 3-1 in conference round robin play, unable to face Medford due to weather and scheduling conflicts. The team lost out on the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament on a tiebreaker, but ended up edging Minocqua 3-2 in the semifinals and hosting the tournament championship game after Mosinee upset top-seeded Medford 11-3.
In the finals, the Rebels relinquished a two-run lead in the top of the seventh, but got a Walker Hartman sacrifice fly in the bottom half of the inning to defeat Mosinee 5-4 and retain a conference title that the Rebels have won or shared every season since the GNLC's inception in 2016.
"For us to be the premiere team in the GNLC every summer since that's been initiated, that's because of you guys and your dedication," Rebels assistant coach Todd Johnson told the team earlier this month a joint year-end awards ceremony for the high school and legion teams. "That doesn't happen by accident."
Toe stubbers
Though the Rebels repeated as conference champs, it wasn't for a lack of hiccups along the way.
The team's most surprising defeat came July 5 when the Rebels spotted Tomahawk six runs in the first inning and could never make up the difference, falling 7-6.
Then there was the championship game of the Merrill Invite where, despite not allowing a hit, Rhinelander lost to D.C. Everest 8-6 behind a pitching staff that issued 11 free bases and a defense that gave up three key errors late in the contest.
Even in Rhinelander's first loss to Medford in the regional tournament, there were three key base-running mistakes and the team did not get the bats going until the seventh inning.
Pitching inversion
During the spring season, Rhinelander rode the arms of Isaac Bixby and Joe Schneider much of the season. During the summer, much of the Rebels' success came without the two on the mound.
Bixby, who was 7-1 in the spring, allowed a run on a hit in a five-inning victory over Minocqua June 30, but would not pitch again until July 25 due to elbow soreness. Even then, he lasted only one inning in an elimination game against Merrill, and then pitched three scoreless innings the following day against Medford in the championship game before coming out after 27 pitches in what Huhnstock called a mutual decision between he and the UW-Platteville recruit.
"His arm has been bothering him all summer long," Huhnstock said. "We were happy to get what we could out of him. It went a lot better today than it did the other day. We got three full (innings) out of him. That's what we were hoping to get out of him."
Meanwhile Schneider made only three appearances this summer, two of which were rough outings. Schneider walked 10 batters over 6 2/3 innings in the 8-6 loss to D.C. Everest and failed to retire a batter with a couple of walks against Merrill July 25.
Following a little work with RHS baseball coach Joe Waksmonski in the bullpen, Schneider looked like his old self as he allowed a run on three hits, with only four walks over seven innings, in a 10-1 win over Medford July 26.
Instead it was Rhinelander's No. 3 and 4 options from the spring that picked up the slack in the summer. Quinn Lamers went 3-0 with a 2.28 ERA and 23 strikeouts over 27 2/3 innings this summer. That included a complete game shutout of Antigo in the regional tournament. Ryan Jamison was the staff leader in innings pitched (29 1/3), going 3-1 with a 2.63 ERA.
Statbook
As tends to be the case, Rhinelander's offense started to heat up underneath the summer sun. A team that hit a collective .265 during the spring raised that average to .318 in the summer.
Lamers proved to be Rhinelander's top hitter, going .431 over the summer with 10 extra base hits and nine RBIs. Meanwhile Jamison's offensive production took a huge leap over the summer. After hitting only .172 in the spring, Jamison hit .417 in the summer with 12 RBIs - five of those coming in Rhinelander's 12-10 rally over Merrill in the regional tournament.
Jamison was not the only player to see a big increase in production at the plate. He was one of six players to raise his batting average at least 40 points from the spring. The others were Devyn Orth (.286 summer/.080 spring), Tim Fox (.308/.207), Lamers (.431/.333), Bixby (.351/.269) and Ian Miller (.387/.345).
Despite a better pitching record, Rhinelander had a staff ERA of 3.88 over the summer, compared to 3.44 in the spring. Also the team's strikeout to walk ratio dropped from 2.53 in the spring to 1.32 in the summer.
What's next
Whether the Rebels can repeat their success remains to be seen. There were six seniors on the squad, all of whom either started or held a significant role. Whether any age-eligible (18 or younger as of Dec. 31, 2021) players return next year remains to be seen.
Leaders on next year's squad appear to include brothers Joe and Sam Schneider, Jamison, Kolby Ridderbusch and Jacksen Smith. Beyond that, the team will draw from a Babe Ruth program that experienced mixed results this summer, with Rhinelander two Senior League teams finishing a combined 8-11 in games where they did not play one another.
"Hopefully some of them are age-eligible and be able to come back and do some leading next year," Huhnstock said. "Otherwise, there's plenty of opportunity for the younger kids to step up and be leaders in the future."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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