Baseball comes up short in three losses

• Second baseman Luke Miller applies the tag to an Eau Claire North runner

Hudson second baseman Luke Miller applies the tag to an Eau Claire North runner after taking the throw from catcher Miles Lewis on an attempted steal in the third inning of the Raiders’ Big Rivers Conference game against the Huskies last Tuesday at Grandview Park. The runner was called safe on the play and North went on to score two runs in the inning on their way to a 10-3 victory. Photo by Bob Burrows

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The Raider baseball team gave state-ranked Eau Claire North all it could handle last Tuesday, May 3 before the Huskies erupted for seven runs in the top of the seventh and went on to a 10-3 victory at Grandview Park.

The loss was the first of three straight for the Raiders. They dropped another Big Rivers Conference matchup, 7-1, Friday to Chippewa Falls before coming out on the short end of a 7-6 decision at Mahtomedi on Saturday.

The Raiders, now 4-3 in the BRC, 5-6 overall, hosted Eau Claire Memorial Tuesday and will play a doubleheader at River Falls Friday beginning at 3:30 p.m. Saturday they travel to South St. Paul for a 7 p.m. nonconference game.

Last Tuesday against Eau Claire North, Hudson took a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the third when Derek Krumrei plated Miles Lewis, Ben Christensen scored on an error and Kellen Pearson delivered a two-out single to score Austin Lenzen.

The Huskies tied it up with a run in the fourth before the Raiders were able to turn a 4-6-3 double play to get out of the inning. The score remained tied until the top of the seventh when the Huskies scored seven runs, highlighted by a three-run blast by Mitch DeGrasse.

Brett Steinwagner was solid on the mound for the Raiders, going 6 1/3 innings while striking out three and walking five to keep the Raiders in the game.

“He battled hard and went six very strong innings against one of the better teams in the state,” head coach Ryan Huppert said. “North did a few things well in the seventh to secure the victory, but that does not take away from Brett’s performance. Brett is already looking forward to the challenge of facing them again on the mound later this season.”

The Raiders and Huskies meet again May 24 at Carson Park in Eau Claire.

No Raider had more than one hit in the game. Krumrei was 1-for-2 with a sac fly and Pearson had an RBI single while Christensen and Lenzen had a hit and run scored apiece and Mike Hommes had a single.

Friday at Chippewa Falls, Cardinal ace Jared Janquish, who is heading to Division I UW-Milwaukee on a baseball scholarship, held the Raiders to one hit, an RBI infield single by Christensen in the third, in a 7-1 Cardinal win.

Hudson scored its only run when Hommes led off the third with a walk, went to second on a sacrifice bunt by Austin Evenson, moved to third on a ground out by Drew Pheneger, and scored when Christensen legged out an infield hit.

Lenzen started on the mound and allowed four runs, three earned, on eight hits while striking out one and walking three. Pearson came on in relief with a run in the fourth and went on to strike out three and walk two while allowing four hits and three unearned runs, all in the seventh inning.

“Pearson pitched well in relief,” Huppert said. “He got out of a bases loaded, no out jam in the fourth. He walked in a run with the first batter, but struck out the next two and got a flyball to center to keep us in the game.”

Saturday in a make-up game at Mahtomedi, the Raiders jumped out to a 6-0 lead, thanks in large part to a three-run home run by Lenzen in the second inning that reached the roof of the Mahtomedi high school.

Matt Strachota drove in the first run of the game with a sacrifice fly in the first that allowed Krumrei to score. Hudson scored four more times in the second on an RBI single by Krumrei that plated Steinwagner and Lenzen’s three-run dinger.

The Raiders pushed another run across in the third when Steinwagner doubled and scored on a two-out single by Evenson but the Hudson bats went quite after that and the Zephyrs scored seven unanswered runs to win 7-6.

Jon Stoffer started on the mound for the Raiders and allowed four runs, three earned, on six hits with no strikeouts and no walks in three innings of work. Parker McNamee pitched the next two innings and took the loss, allowing three earned runs on three hits with two strikeouts and three walks before Brian DePauw allowed one hit the rest of the way.

“Depauw gets us out of a huge jam in the bottom of the sixth,” Huppert said. “He enters the game with no outs and runners at first and second and gives up a base hit to load them up. With the infield in, we got a 6-2 put out, Krumrei to Lewis. Then a failed squeeze bunt allowed us to get an out at home plate, then we got a comebacker to get out of the inning with no runs allowed.”

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