Late rally gives Hodag softball win over Three Lakes

The Rhinelander High School softball team had two big innings on Thursday. That was enough for the team to snap a four-game losing streak. 

The Hodags scored eight times in the sixth inning and defeated Three Lakes 15-10 on the road in non-conference play.

Rhinelander (2-4, 0-1 Great Northern) led 7-4 after a six-run second inning, but the Bluejays (4-3, 0-0 Northern Lakes) had rallied to tie before the Hodags’ second big inning. 

“It was so nice to get back in the win column,” Hodag coach Ali Bender said. “The girls were pumped up. They had an awesome attitude the entire game, cheering each other on, picking each other up. That’s been a huge thing that we’ve been embracing all year, that failure-recovery system. You own your mistake and everyone backs you, and it just seems like we’re really coming together.”

After Kendall Vanney drew a leadoff walk in the top of the sixth, Chase Verbist bunted her way aboard and the floodgates seemed to open from there. Saige Mutter and Cassidy Lindner drew walks to force home courtesy runner Kelsey Yunkers and give the Hodags an 8-7 lead. From there, Kalyn Miller drove in a run on a fielder’s choice as Lindner beat a throw on a play at second and two more runs scored as Aleece Johnson reached on an error to short. Another error, two batters later, allowed another run to score. Two more runs came in on a single by Vanney and Saige Mutter added a sacrifice fly for the final run of the inning. 

“Chase Verbist laid down and beautiful bunt the top of the sixth inning and it started a rally, and that rally is what got us ahead. Chase did an awesome job, started a rally for us and from there we just kept going,” Bender said.

Three Lakes got two runs back in the bottom of the sixth on a RBI single by Kayla Koepp and a wild pitch that plated Ashlyn Wolosek. Haylee Barnekow tripled and scored on a two-out error, but the Bluejays got no closer in the seventh. 

Johnson walked and scored on a wild pitch to give Rhinelander a 1-0 lead in the first, but the Bluejays rallied back for four in the bottom half of the inning, all with the bases loaded and two outs thanks to a walk, and error and a wild pitch. 

“We just we started off a little rough. Like rough as in we walked a few girls,” Bender noted. “It got a little rainy out with the ball started slipping. Overall though our defense did a really nice job tonight. We only made a few errors.”

Verbist walked and scored on an error to kick off Rhinelander’s big second inning. Four more walks allowed the Hodags to tie the game at four before Lucy Lindner grounded into an RBI fielder’s choice that scored Ava Rathbun to put the Hodag ahead. Vanney added an RBI later in the inning fore another RBI fielders’ choice by Verbist that put the Hodags up 7-4.

Walks were an issue for both teams in the game. Johnson worked around nine of them and three hit batters, but balanced it out with 10 strikeouts in the win for Rhinelander. Starter Kylee Wilson and reliever Malia Szews combined to walk 16 batters for the Bluejays.

“We had some great at bats. We had at least five like consistent battles that we faced. We had girls fouling multiple balls off just to stay alive, Bender said. “We also were really disciplined tonight at the plate, which was really nice to see. We weren’t swinging at balls that were above our head or in the dirt. We were swinging out strikes.”

    Rhinelander’s Lucy Lindner attempts to make a play on Three Lakes runner Haylee Barnekow during the sixth inning of a non-conference softball game at Three Lakes Thursday, April 17. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Three Lakes got a run back on an RBI double by Kassidy Williams in the fourth and tied it in the sixth on an RBI single by Wolosek and a RBI groundout by Ella Spears. 

Vanney had two hits and three RBIs in the win for Rhinelander. Miller added a pair of RBIs for the Hodags. 

Rhinelander was scheduled to take on Wausau East Monday however that game was postponed due to incliment weather. The Hodags host defending GNC-champion and D2 state runner-up Mosinee this afternoon before going to Minocqua for a rematch against Lakeland on Thursday. The Hodags dropped the first meeting against the Thunderbirds 18-0 in Rhinelander this past Monday. 

“Next week is going to be a tough week and we just got to grind those games,” Bender said. “If we win the innings we will do just fine with outcome, but if we lose multiple innings, then our outcomes not going be great, so just taking it step-by-step versus thinking of the big picture.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].