Early hole too much for RHS baseball vs. Tomahawk

The Rhinelander High School baseball team spotted Tomahawk a seven-run lead Tuesday and nearly erased all of that deficit, only to give it all back in the seventh inning.

A six-run seventh was the final nail in the Hodags’ coffin as they fell to the Hatchets 13-6 at Stafford Field.

The loss was Rhinelander’s 11th straight and clinched a last-place finish for the Hodags in the Great Northern Conference standings. The team’s worst finish in the GNC prior to this year was a tie for fifth back in 2014. 

A pair of errors helped Tomahawk score twice in the first inning without the aid of a hit. Four two-out walks and a third-strike wild pitch led to five more runs, and starter James Heck’s undoing in the third. Rhinelander scored six times in four innings after that, but it proved to be too little too late.

“We just kind of dug too big of a hole in the beginning — too many walks, too many free bases again,” Hodag coach Joe Waksmonski said. “We did show some fight. We got a couple of bats going. That was good to see but, again, just the initial hole was just too great to overcome.”

Rhinelander got back within a run on Kaden Vanney’s two-out single in the sixth that scored Barak Rappley. Seth Nofftz also came around on the play after the relay throw to first was mishandled. But things unraveled quickly for the Hodags in the seventh.

Cooper Hetzel and Drew Tollefson started the inning with seeing-eye singles for the Hatchets and then Connor Vanderwyst dropped down a sacrifice bunt that allowed Hetzel to score after pitcher Owen Kurtz’s throw to first sailed wildly toward the Tomahawk bullpen up the right field line. Kurtz was relieved after hitting Colton Seslar with a pitch. A wild pitch by Vanney in relief allowed Tollefson to score before the Hatchets chopped down any Hodag comeback hopes thanks to an RBI single by Walter Horabik, followed by an RBI double to right center by Brayden Larson and a two-run double down the left field line by Brody Hilgendorf.

“We had the error on the bunt coverage and then the hits started falling for them,” Waksmonski said. “They did hit the ball well in that last inning but, unfortunately, we kind of aided them with that error.”

Heck took the loss for Rhinelander, allowing seven runs, five earned, on three hits with six walks and four strikeouts over 2 2/3 innings. Kurtz came on in relief, got the Hodags out of the third and then worked three straight scoreless innings before things went awry in the seventh.

“Owen came in and did an admirable job,” Waksmonski said. “He came in completely cold in the situation, didn’t have a single pitch in the bullpen and was able to come and shut down that inning and, for three innings after that, there were zeroes on the board. That was awesome to see.”

In the interim Rhinelander chipped away at Tomahawk’s lead. Vanney had an RBI single in the third to score Nofftz. Tyler Chariton beat a throw to the plate on a grounder to third by Heck in the fourth and Rowan Wiczek later scored on a wild pitch. Rhinelander added another run in the fifth as Dylan Vanderbunt singled and scored on a sacrifice fly by Adrian Patrone. 

Vanney and Vanderbunt both finished the day 2-for-3 at the plate as Tomahawk outhit Rhinelander, 9-8.

“Especially lately, it’s been the story of their year, one or two hits a game,” Waksmonski said. “Quite frankly, that’s been great to have, getting some guys on bases and now we just have to push them across.”

Larson struck out nine over five innings to get the win for Tomahawk. Monty Framke earned the save, allowing two runs on three hits over the final two innings.

The loss was Rhinelander first to Tomahawk in GNC play since 2019. The Hodags will get one more crack at the Hatchets this afternoon at Kahle Field in Tomahawk to round out conference play.

“We saw Brayden Larson, probably their best, but you never know,” Waksmonski said. “We’ll counter with Max (Ratty) on Friday. Max has had a couple of good outings recently. Hopefully that continues in Tomahawk.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].