Hodag baseball shut out in three straight

WISCONSIN RAPIDS — The Rhinelander High School baseball team is looking for something —anything — to go its way offensively. Through the first five games, hits and runs have been hard to come by for the Hodags. 

The offensive struggles continued late last week for Rhinelander, which was blanked 8-0 on the road at Antigo Thursday in its Great Northern Conference opener and then combined for only three hits in two games Saturday as it was swept by Wisconsin Rapids in a non-conference doubleheader, 13-0 and 9-0.

Rhinelander has scored only three runs through its first five games and is hitting a combined .154 at the plate (16 of 104). 

Hodag skipper Joe Waksmonski likened the struggles to a shooting drought in basketball. Sometimes, he said, all it takes a little bit of success to turn things around. 

“You see the ball go through the hoop once and it gets going,” he said. “Hitting is contagious. You get one or two guys going and then it starts happening thought out the team. Hitting is also not contagious as well. I think that’s kind of where we’re at. A bunch of our guys are not hitting, a couple of our core guys aren’t hitting and it’s kind of spread out through the team. But, again, you see the ball go through the hoop one time and hopefully we can do it again.”

Antigo 8, Rhinelander 0

The Hodags had five hits on Thursday but fell behind early and could never catch up in an 8-0 loss in Antigo that was called in the sixth inning due to rain. 

The Robins used a three-run second inning to take the lead, tacked on two more in the third and three in the fifth. Waksmonski said Thursday’s issues came down to too many free bases for the bottom half of the Antigo lineup. The Robins’ 6-9 hitters were a combined 2 for 5, drew five walks and twice reached on errors. 

“A lot of that just comes from self-inflicted damage, free bases,” he said. “We were giving up a lot of bases to their 6, 7, 8, 9 hitters and then the top of the order comes up and they had two really good at-bats from the top of the order to get some RBIs and put us in a hole right away.”

After a pair of walks and an error loaded the bases in the second, Max Ratty walked Wyatt Krause to force in a run and give the Robins the lead. Preston Knapkavage followed with an RBI single and Alec Knapkavage added an RBI fielder’s choice to put the Robins up 3-0.

Antigo collected three straight hits off Ratty to being the third, including an RBI single by Grant Praslowicz. Aiden Parker added a sacrifice fly that made it 5-0. Antigo loaded the bases again with one out in the fifth, and all three scored thanks to a wild pitch and a fielding error.

Ratty took the loss for Rhinelander, giving up five runs on four hits with five walks and a strikeout. While an improvement from his season-opening outing against Stratford where he gave up 11 runs in just 2 2/3 innings, Waksmonski said Ratty has not quite found the form that made him the Hodags’ top pitcher last season.

“He’s just not having success, especially early in the count,” he said. “His off-speed pitch he doesn’t have the command he feel he needs right now in being able to throw his curveball for a strike. That’s just kind of a double-edged (sword). You’re falling behind and the hitters are knowing they’re going to get a fastball to hit.”

Meanwhile, Rhinelander had runner in scoring position in four innings — including a second and third, no-out opportunity in the fourth — and came away empty. Riley Guenthner fanned nine over five innings to pick up the win for the Robins.

“We’re still just searching at the plate,” Waksmonski said. “We just don’t look very comfortable in the box. We seem to not have a plan at the plate. We’re swinging at something and hope we hit it. We’ve just got to talk about that more and talk about our approaches.”

Rapids doubleheader

Guenthner’s pitching effort paled in comparison to what the Hodags faced in the nightcap of Saturday’s doubleheader from Wisconsin Rapids’ Gage Honeyager. 

The southpaw carried a perfect game into the seventh inning before the Hodags broke it up with singles by Seth Nofftz and Ratty in a 9-0 defeat. 

Waksmonski said the Hodags have seen some above average pitching through the first five games and Honeyager took the cake, striking out 17 and walking no one.

“You talk to some of their players and, supposedly, he’s the No. 3. I don’t know about that,” Waksmonski said. “He was incredible for sure. We’d like to eventually catch up to that the second time through instead of the third time through, but you’ve got to tip your cap to that. That was an incredible pitching performance.”

Nofftz spoiled Honeyager’s bid at perfection on the first pitch in the seventh, turning on a fastball and driving it into left field for the Hodags’ first hit. Ratty singled to right two batters later as Honeyager settled for a two-hit shutout.

“They were really good at-bats,” Waksmonski said. “Seth jumped on the first pitch, got the timing down and put on a really good swing and hit the ball really hard. Max, same thing, put a good swing on a pitch to hit and hit the ball really hard.”

Those were the main highlights for the Hodags on Saturday. Two Rapids pitchers combined to hold the Hodags to one hit — a Rowan Wiczek second-inning single — in Game 1. Meanwhile Rapids batted around in the third, clobbering 11 runs on eight hits in the frame. Most of those came off junior Dylan Vanderbunt, who gave up 11 runs on 10 hits over 2 2/3 innings with four walks and two strikeouts. 

“Rapids hit him hard. You look back at that inning and was there a key error or mental mistake? There really wasn’t. It was just the simple fact that Rapids got the bats around and that’s a good-hitting ball club,” Waksmonski said. “It was their second time through the lineup and they got to him and started hitting. There are a couple of plays we wish we could have made for our pitchers in Game 1, we just didn’t make them.”

Rapids eventually figured out Heck in the second game as well. Trailing 3-0 after four innings Heck gave up four runs on four hits in the fifth as Rapids blew the game open. 

Heck fell behind in the count early in that inning, which led to a Jordan Szelagowski leadoff walk followed by Honeyager triple to left center on a 3-2 pitch. Honeyager later scored on an infield hit by Brett Simonsen and the Raiders tacked on two later in the inning. 

Heck’s final line was seven runs on seven hits with four walks and five strikeouts over five innings. 

    Rhinelander’s Jackson Waydick pitches during the sixth inning of the second game of a non-conference baseball doubleheader at Wisconsin Rapids Saturday, April 13. Waydick, a freshman, made his varsity pitching debut during Saturday’s game. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

“James is very competitive. When he’s behind in the count, he’s not afraid to throw the ball and go after hitters — even if he’s down 1-0, 2-0, whatever the case may be,” Waksmonski said. “It’s just a matter for him of being consistent, especially early in the count. The thing we like about James is he’s a bulldog out on the mound.”

Freshman Jackson Waydick made his varsity pitching debut in relief during the second game. He gave up a pair of runs on three hits over two innings with a couple of strikeouts to Rapids’ Nos. 1 and 4 hitters. 

Busy week ahead

Mother Nature willing, the Hodags (0-5, 0-1 Great Northern) are slated to play four games this week, including three at Stafford Field. Rhinelander was set to face Northland Pines yesterday afternoon after press time for today’s edition. The Hodags will make the return trip to Eagle River to face the Eagles again Thursday, will host Antigo on Friday and Abbotsford/Colby on Saturday. 

With Northland Pines sporting a couple of talented left-handed pitchers in Landyn Hoeft and Jonathan Miller, Waksmonski said he hopes tough early-season matchups will have his team ready for an important week.

“We’ve seen some really incredible pitching early on in the season,” he said. “I can’t ever remember going into a season where we’re seeing pitching like this. The guys that we’re seeing are around the zone, throwing hard, plus fastballs, plus off-speed stuff. 

“It’s really setting the table for this upcoming week. It’s an important week. We’ve got three conference games coming up and, the silver lining is we’ve seen some incredible pitching.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].