By Murray Gleffe
Correspondent
GREEN BAY – The Green Bay Storm men’s baseball team had the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning but was unable to capitalize in its 5-3 loss to the Appleton Legends June 25.
The Northeastern Wisconsin League game was played at VandenPlas Field on the campus of Green Bay Southwest High School.
“We hit the ball extremely well tonight but couldn’t advance runners,” said Green Bay head coach Paul Wilmet. “Appleton made some great plays in the outfield to keep us from scoring runs when we needed them.”
Chris Huettner was the winning pitcher for Appleton, and Grant Frazier took the loss for the Storm.
BJ Chase came in and got the save in the ninth for the Legends.
Green Bay stranded 13 base runners in the game, including three in the bottom of the ninth.
After an opening-inning strikeout, Marcus Rauschenbach, Zach Watzka and Cole Schabow had consecutive singles to load the bases.
A groundout put the storm down to their last out.
The Legends then walked Cohen to bring home a Storm run to cut the margin to 5-3.
Unfortunately, for Green Bay, the last at-bat resulted in a fly out to the outfield to end the game.
“I’m proud of the fight the guys showed right to the end,” added Wilmet. “One hit could’ve won us the game or sent the game to extra innings. We just were on the short end of a couple of plays that could’ve swung the game our way.”
The Legends opened the scoring in the top of the second with two runs and then added to it in the third.
Tony Krueger led off with a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch.
Later in the inning, Evan Bohman hit a sacrifice fly to score Krueger to give Appleton a 3-0 lead.
Green Bay struck just an inning later.
Rauschenbach singled, and then Zach Watzka walked, giving the Storm some much-needed momentum.
After a fly out and strikeout, Huettner got loose with his arm.
He sent 12 of his next 15 pitches out of the strike zone, walking Michael Cohen, Mike Larsen, and Brett Reinhart in the process.
Both Rauschenbach and Watzka strolled across home plate to cut Appleton’s lead to 3-2.
The fifth and sixth innings went by with Green Bay stranding two more base runners and not changing the scoreboard.
In the top of the seventh, Appleton’s Ryan Brouch hit a two-run homer to left field for a 5-2 lead.
Box score
Appleton: 021 000 200 – 5 9 1
Green Bay: 000 200 001 – 3 8 2