Wausau beats Stevens Point twice to earn trip to American Legion state tournament
PLOVER - The Wausau American Legion baseball team has gone from a group that couldn't find a way to win early this summer to one that can't be counted out of anything suddenly.
The Bulldogs,who rallied late for the Wisconsin Valley League title by winning their final nine conference games, showed that mentality on Friday as they beat Stevens Point twice over a roughly seven-hour span Friday to win the Class AAA Region 2 championship at Veterans Memorial Park.
Wausau, which was on the verge of elimination after a loss to Wisconsin Rapids on Wednesday, beat the Sixers 7-6 and 13-5 to win the region title for the second straight year. The Bulldogs advance to the Class AAA state tournamentnext week in Kimberly.
"The whole team knows it's do-or-die (right now) and we're all fighting for each other," Wausau first baseman Zach Pearson said. "We all grew up playing together and we don't want to stop playing together."
The Sixers were undefeated in the double-elimination regional tournament and Wausau forced a winner-take-all matchup as Steven Lewandowski had an RBI single with two outs in the top of the 10th inning of the first game to score Logan Grunenwald and keep the Bulldogs' season alive.
Lewandowski's key hit came after Stevens Point’s Cole Wright had a two-run double with two outs in the ninth to tie the score 6-6 and force extra innings. Wright doubled twice in the game, had a solo home run and finished with four RBI for the Sixers, who trailed 5-1 in the sixth inning.
The second game began with similar drama but eventually broke down to a battle of which team could take advantage of miscues and depleted pitching staffs.
Wausau benefited from five Sixers errors over the first three innings to set a tone as both teams struggled defensively in the second game. The Bulldogs scored three runs without getting a hit in the third inning to take a 5-3 lead. The Bulldogs took advantage of two errors, two walks and a hit batsman in the frame.
"We knew we didn't have much pitching left and we had to grind it out," Wausau's Zach Raeder said. "Luckily we were able to capitalize on their errors."
The Sixers scored a pair of runs in the fourth on two Wausau errors, and had a chance to tie the score on a squeeze bunt. But Point's Brady Franz was called out for making contact with the pitch outside the batter's box on the bunt and Josh Morton grounded out to third as Wausau escaped with a 6-5 lead.
The two teams combined for 17 errors in the game and the Sixers had a dozen of them. Wausau broke the game open with six runs over the sixth and seventh innings, taking advantage of six errors and a pair wild pitches in that span.
"I don't think I've been in a game that had this many errors before. It wasn't a masterpiece," Wausau coach Tom Magnuson said. "We put the ball in play and made them make plays. We had five errors too so it wasn't like we played a sparkling game either."
The Bulldogs were good enough to get a pair of wins Friday.
"The other night (the way Wausau played) against Wisconsin Rapids was kind of an anomaly, but I don't think anyone (on the team) doubted that we could come out here today and win both of these games," Magnuson said. "We always say we want to be playing our best baseball at the end of the year and the way we started this year it wasn't that difficult. We were pretty bad at the beginning of the year. But (the players) stayed with it, got better and the last two and a half weeks, we have been playing pretty good baseball."
Tim Johnson: 715-845-0731, or twjohnson@gannett.coml; on Twitter @timmyjo11