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Manitowoc Lutheran High School has had a magical run this school year in athletics, achieving a lot of firsts and rewriting the record books in several sports.
The baseball team was looking to join the parade as a victory over St. Mary Catholic would have given the Lancers their first team title in 51 years, but it wasn’t meant to be, as the host Zephyrs defeated Manitowoc Lutheran 5-0 to claim the Big East North Division title.
The game was scoreless through three innings, with the Lancers loading the bases with one out in the top of the fourth inning, but a strikeout and a ground ball to third ended the inning.
St. Mary Catholic would score the game’s first run in the bottom of the fourth as Caleb Vogel led off with a triple of Lancer starter Drew Staudt and would score on a safety squeeze by Ethan Plutz.
Manitowoc Lutheran would load the bases at the top of the fifth inning.
Joel Voight and Josiah Martin had back-to-back singles to lead off the inning and advanced to second and third, respectively.
Logan Haupt walked to load the bases, and with two outs, Will Franzen drove a ball to the gap in deep left center field that appeared to be ticketed for the wall for a bases-clearing double, only to be caught by (Caleb) Springborn, robbing the Lancers of three runs and ending the inning.
The Zephyrs would put up four runs in the bottom of the fifth as Luke Fairweather scored on a safety squeeze bunt by Caleb Vogel, Jacob Ernsting had a two-run single, and Mason Wagner capped off the rally with a run-scoring double.
The Lancers would only have one base runner in the final two innings as Wesley Hecker grounded to short for the final out, and St. Mary Catholic would celebrate their Big East North Division championship.
Manitowoc Lutheran head coach Jeff Dolan tells seehafernews.com that you must give credit where it’s due.
“We had our moments and chances, but give St. Mary’s credit, they made the plays when they had to and kept us off the scoreboard,” he said. “They responded by scoring runs to put the pressure back on us, and unfortunately, we couldn’t push anything across. Momentum is a fickle thing in baseball, as they took advantage of their opportunities to come through and win the game.”
Dolan added, “I’m real proud of our team’s effort. They were focused, played hard, and did everything our coaching staff asked them to do. They weren’t overwhelmed by the moment. St. Mary’s just played a little bit better than we did today.”
Jacob Ernsting pitched the first six innings to earn the win, with Ben Kuffel throwing a perfect seventh inning.
Drew Staudt took the loss, pitching 4 and two-thirds innings, allowing all five runs earned.
Aiden Krause pitched the final inning and a third in relief.
Manitowoc Lutheran loses for just the second time in their last thirteen games and has a seven-game Big East North Division winning streak snapped as they fall to 7-3 on league play and 12-7 overall.
St. Mary Catholic improves to 8-2 in league and 14- 7 overall.
The Lancers conclude the regular season next Tuesday (May 26th), hosting Random Lake.
