District domination

    Rhinelander’s Jaxon Eades celebrates after catching the final out of Wisconsin Little League District 5 10U championship in Rib Mountain Thursday, July 20. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

RIB MOUNTAIN — The Hodag Little League program has won a District 5 tournament for the third time in as many years. 

Following championships with its 12U all-star teams in 2021 and 2022, Rhinelander’s 10U all-stars got in on the fun this year as they completed an undefeated run to the district title with an 8-5 win over Wausau American Thursday night at Doepke Park.

Manager Dan Bauer has had a front row seat to all three titles. He helped coach the 12Us in 2021, was their manager last year and skippered the 10Us to the title this season. He said the feeling never gets old.

“It’s just as sweet. We’ve done this three years in a row now with one of our age groups and it’s just awesome experience,” he said. “This is a pretty good group of amazing kids. They work hard, practice hard, play hard and they always stick together and they’ve come out on top so far every game.”

Eli Bauer, Dan’s son, had a command pitching performance in Thursday’s championship game, striking out 11 over 4 2/3 innings while allowing only one run on three hits. 

Patient at the plate, the Hodags broke the game open with a six-run fifth inning, and they needed nearly all of that insurance after the Americans forged a fierce comeback in the top of the sixth. 

Rhinelander jumped on the board first in the bottom of the first inning as Jeter Vander Gailen and Jaxon Eades drew back-to-back walks to start the game and advanced on a wild pitch. RBI groundouts by Eli Bauer and Nick Schneider gave Rhinelander an early 2-0 edge.

That was it until the fifth when the Americans finally answered. Jace Baumgardt led off with a single and scored on a throwing error as Rhinelander tried to erase him at third following a groundout by George Pond.

Clinging to a 2-1 lead, and with the bottom half of the order up, Rhinelander stayed patient as an American team — playing its fourth game in four days — worked deep into its pitching rotation. 

With one out in the inning, the Hodags drew five straight walks while Rylan Pasanen and Blake Sundby scored on wild pitches to up the lead to 4-1. Vander Gailen had a fielder’s choice with the bases loaded to drive in William Sundby and then Vander Gailen and Griffin Rady executed a double-steal of second and home to make it 6-1. 

All of this occurred before Rhinelander recorded its first hit of the night, which came moments later as Eades beat out a throw on a grounder to second. Wausau American then misfired to third after Vander Gailen took a wide turn around the base, allowing Vander Gailen to score. Bauer followed with an RBI single to right to make it 8-1. 

In all, Rhinelander had eight runs on only two hits in the game, but drew 12 walks. 

“They’ve had a good eye all tournament. We haven’t had a lot of backwards Ks. Their eyes have been good at the plate all tournament for us,” coach Bauer said.

The cushion was needed as the strike zone tightened on reliever Easton Ostrom, who walked three straight batters to start the sixth. He was replaced on the mound by Vander Gailen, who got a grounder back to the mound to get an out at home for the first out of the inning, and then got an RBI groundout by Logan Platta to make it 8-2. From there, however, a run-scoring wild pitch, back-to-back walks, an RBI single by Max Johnson and a bases loaded walk to Baumgardt cut the lead to three and brought the go-ahead run to the plate. Warren Prahl hit a lazy fly ball to Eades in center to end the contest. 

“Thank God we got those extra runs in the fifth inning,” coach Bauer said. “They came up big and they got the hits when we needed them to score the runs to get us that security blanket so we could pull out the win.”

Rhinelander had the advantage after winning their first two games in Week 2 of the tournament. Wausau American needed to win the contest to force a winner-take-all championship game.

Play beyond the district tournament will work differently for the Hodag 10Us. Instead of all the district champions and a wild card team playing in a week-long state tournament, Rhinelander will travel to Superior to play the District 1 champion in a best-of-three sectional series July 29-31. The winner of that series will return to Superior to play another best-of-three series against the southern sectional champion Aug. 5-7 for the state title. 

“I kind of liked the experience of the 12-year-old (tournament) they way they do it,” coach Bauer said. “When you advance, you’re guaranteed five games. That’s nights in a hotel with your buddies. I kind of like that experience for the kids, but hopefully we can win the sectional and we can get another weekend in a hotel.”

However, Bauer added, “The way we’re sitting. We’ve got two pretty good pitchers, so this might work out better for us.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].