Xavier baseball drops WIAA Division 2 sectional final to Mosinee

By Dustin Riese
For AppletonSportsPage.com

APPLETON – It wasn’t always easy, but the Xavier Hawks baseball team has plenty to be proud of this season. After a dramatic win over No. 1 seeded Kiel earlier in the day to reach the sectional final, the Hawks had their toughest test yet with a trip to the state tournament on the line.

Standing in their way was not only another No. 1 seed, but the No. 1 ranked team in Division 2, Mosinee. The Hawks gave Mosinee all it could handle and held their high-powered offense to just two runs on six hits. However, those two runs would be all the Indians would need as they put an end to the Hawks season, winning 2-0 in a WIAA Division 2 sectional final Tuesday at Don Hawkins Field at American Legion Post 38.

“Effort was good today, as it has been for the entire playoffs,” Xavier head coach Tim Harikkala said. “They’ve been playing good baseball the last couple weeks, I thought we would have a good chance today. (We were) faced with some quality pitching today, which cooled off our hitting from the last three games. We had just enough in the first game, but couldn’t get the timely hit in the second game.”

Xavier reached the sectional final with a 3-2 win over Kiel, while Mosinee topped Green Bay Notre Dame 3-2 in a pair of pitchers’ duels.

With Tyler Brightman on the mound for the Hawks against Mosinee’s Keagen Jirschele, runs would be at a premium as both pitchers came to play. Brightman did about everything he could, and more, on the mound as he went the distance for the Hawks, allowing just two runs on six hits with six strikeouts in six innings. One of those runs came in the second inning on a two-out Benjamin Schlei double as the Indians took a 1-0 lead.

It was a lead they would never give up as Jirschele battled through some command issues in his six innings of work, but did so allowing just two hits with the first of those hits coming on a Luke Krull single in the first.

Trailing by a run in the second, Xavier had its best opportunity to score in the top half of the third as Reed Flick led the inning off with a double. He would eventually be caught stealing trying to go to third, but with Gavin Wiese and Matt Potter both taking walks, Xavier still had a chance to pull even only to come up empty.

Still holding the 1-0 lead in the fourth, Mosinee delivered what would be the knockout punch as a solo home run from Cameron Ziebell extended the Indians lead to 2-0. Although a 2-0 lead may not seem like a lot, the Hawks managed to put just one runner on base the rest of the way.

With Taylor Lemanski on the mound looking to close the game out for Mosinee, the Hawks were down to their last chance.. Despite a couple of well-struck balls, including one from Parker Bleck that resulted in a line out, Xavier saw its season come to an end. This was the type of game that summed up the entire season for the Hawks, as they went through their share of ups and downs this season.

“It was a roller coaster of a season overall,” Harrikula said. “We had some good stretches and some bad ones. The Bay Conference is pretty competitive (Bay teams are 12-6 so far in the playoffs, with Menasha making it to State in D1). We knew going in we would need to find some consistency.  Pitching and defense got us some quality wins during the year, and we thought our hitting had finally turned the corner at the right time, with some good wins against Luxemburg-Casco and Denmark in regionals.  It was a good push at the end to finish with a lot of positives and a little success, even though we ended up a little short.”

Prior to their loss to Mosinee, the Hawks were locked in another tightly contested game with Kiel where some sloppy defense and a late-game run led to a 3-2 victory to put them into the sectional final. Bleck was about as good as you can be on the mound as he came one out away from throwing a complete game, going 6 ⅔ and allowing just one earned run. He walked four, but struck out five before Wiese closed things out for the save.

Like in the Mosinee game, the first run of the game came in the second inning and it came without a hit as the Hawks loaded the bases off a pair of hit batters and a walk as they had Kiel pitcher Eyan Dessellier on the ropes early. The right-hander did a great job limiting the damage, but a Wiese grounder resulted in a fielder’s choice and gave the Hawks a 1-0 lead. It was a lead that would hold until the fourth when a lead-off walk from Kiel resulted in a tie game as Benjamin Kienbaum crushed an RBI double over the head of Krull.

One batter later saw the Raiders grab the lead as a crucial throwing error allowed for the go-ahead run to score.

Errors played a key role in the top half of the fifth for the Hawks as well as they benefited from a pair of Kiel errors, including a dropped pop fly with two outs and just like that this was a 2-2 game.

The of the sixth was the key inning of the game as the Raiders put a pair of runners in scoring position with one out and had Bleck in trouble for the first time.

As he has done all season, Bleck managed to escape trouble. He walked Aaron Stephany to load the bases only to come through with a massive pick off and strikeout to end the frame. It’s the kind of moments Harrikula grew accustomed to seeing from his pitchers this season.

“Our pitching has been pretty solid all season,” he said. “Rostering only 14 during the regular season, we got stretched a little thin some weeks, when we had to go six or seven pitchers deep to get through games, which then in turn hurt us defensively when those guys would have to play a position the following day.  With the playoffs, having the days off, I thought we would match up well pitching-wise.  Parker and Tyler obviously threw great today giving us a chance to win in both games, but Gavin getting the final out against Kiel’s best hitter with the tying run in scoring position for the save in Game 1 was just as big.”

The Hawks used that momentum from the bottom half of the sixth to push home the go-ahead run in the seventh on an RBI double by Krull.

Mosinee (24-5) will play in a Division 2 semifinal on Wednesday, June 12, at the state tournament at Fox Cities Stadium in Appleton. Mosinee will be making its seventh state tournament appearance and fourth in the past seven years.

Sectional Semifinal
Hawks 3, Raiders 2
Xavier 010 010 1 – 3 4 2
Kiel 000 200 0 – 2 5 3
WP: Parker Bleck. LP: Aaron Stephany. SV: Gavin Wiese.
SO: P. Bleck (6 2/3 inn.) 5, Wiese (1/3 inn.) 0; Eyan Dessellier (5 inn.) 7, Stephany (2 inn.) 1. BB: P. Bleck 4, Wiese 0; Dessellier 2, Stephany 2.
Top hitters: X, Luke Krull 2×4, 2B, RBI; Wiese RBI, run; Reid Heitpas 1×4; Titan Milhaupt 1×3, run. K, Benjamin Kienbaum 3×3, 2 2Bs, RBI, run.
Records: Xavier 15-12; Kiel 22-5.

Sectional Final
Indians 2, Hawks 0
Xavier 000 000 0 – 0 3 0
Mosinee 010 100 x – 2 6 1
WP: Keagan Jirschele. LP: Tyler Brightman. SV: Taylor Lemanski.
SO: Brightman 6; Jirschele (6 inn.) 3, Lemanski (1 inn.) 1. BB: Brightman 1; Jirschele 3, Lemanski 0.
Top hitters: X, Krull 1×3; Hietpas 1×3; Reed Flick 2B. M, Cameron Ziebell 2×3, HR, 2 runs, RBI; Jirschele 2B; Benjamin Schlei 2B, RBI; Gavin Obremski 2B.
Records: Xavier 15-13; Mosinee 24-5.