Elk Mound baseball claims regional title after edging Cardinals, Bulldogs
By Cara L. Dempski
ELK MOUND — Last week was an interesting one to be an Elk Mound baseball fan.
The Mounder sluggers were not scheduled for a regional match-up until hosting a home game May 30 after receiving a first-round regional bye as the second seed.
The Spring Valley Cardinals, champions of the small Dunn-St. Croix, bested the Glenwood City Hilltoppers in a WIAA Division 3 regional opener May 25 for the right to head to Elk Mound and face the Mounders, co-champs of the large D-SC, for a second time this season.
Elk Mound, who shut out Spring Valley 13-0 in their April 24 meeting, found just enough ways to get past the Cards’ defense for a 3-0 win for an opportunity to host Boyceville in the following day’s regional title contest.
The fourth-seeded Bulldogs’ stunned the Ramblers, the top seed and Division 3’s third-ranked squad, with a 2-0 victory on Regis’ home field May 30.
Few believed Boyceville, who had lost their previous two meeting against the Mounders by a combined score of 22-1, could get past Elk Mound, but the Dogs had other plans.
Boyceville held Elk Mound scoreless until the bottom of the fifth when the Mounders plated four runs.
But the Bulldogs came back to score four times in the top of the sixth to knot the game up at four.
The home team eventually prevailed in extra innings. Elk Mound scored the game winner on an error in the bottom of the eighth to claim a 5-4 win and the WIAA Division 3 regional championship.
The victory gave Elk Mound a berth in yesterday’s (June 6) sectional tournament in Cumberland June 6. The Mounders faced their third consecutive D-SC opponent in the playoffs when they faced Durand, a team the Mounders shared the large conference crown with and split in their previous two meetings. The winner of that game will take on the winner of the Cumberland/Chetek-Weyerhaeuser game for the sectional championship and the right to go to the state tournament June 13 – 15.
Spring Valley
Pitching duels can be dull watching for anyone except a true baseball purist.
Which means there were probably a lot of people at the May 30 Elk Mound and Spring Valley game who were starting to lose focus around the fifth inning.
The Mounders had managed to score only one run in the bottom of the second before the Cardinals tightened up defensively and held the home team in check.
It was not until bats heated up again in the bottom of the sixth that the Elk Mound squad made the game interesting again.
The team held on for the 3-0 win to play for the regional championship the following evening.
Juniors Dylan Curry and Dylan Black led the team’s offense against Spring Valley with each recording a run batted in and a double. Trey Mohr logged a double in the game that saw just six hits – four by the Mounders.
Dunn-St. Croix baseball player of the year Ethan Kjellberg worked all seven innings on the mound. He held the Cardinals to just two hits and struck out 10 on 93 pitches.
SPRING VALLEY 0, ELK MOUND 3
Spring Valley…………0 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0
Elk Mound……………0 1 0 0 0 2 0 — 3
Boyceville
Junior Blake Rosenthal might just be Elk Mound’s newest hero.
The pitcher knew the team was in a spot of trouble against Boyceville May 31, but managed to keep his cool and maintain his ability to pitch.
His moment came in the top of the eighth inning when two Bulldog players dinged line-drive singles and a third earned a walk off him to set up some serious scoring opportunities for the visiting team in the Division 3 regional championship game.
What could Rosenthal do? What was he thinking?
We may never know.
What we do know is that the 11th-grade right-hander struck the next three Bulldogs batters out swinging to give his team another chance to win the game.
Win, they did, when Elk Mound came up with a run from Trey Mohr after the Boyceville squad flubbed a catch on an infield fly near third base to give the senior just enough time to race home for the win.
Elk Mound coach Paul Andrea called the contest a game for the ages.
“I credit Boyceville for battling back to tie the game against Trey (Mohr) after being down 4-0,” Andrea explained. “Any time you face teams from your conference who have you beaten during the regular season in the tournament, it always makes it difficult to a win.”
Andrea said the difficulty stems from a familiarity between the teams, and a built-in conference rivalry beyond regular season play.
The Mounders got on top in the fifth after going scoreless in the opening innings. Rosenthal, Dylan Black, Logan Bergh and Dylan Curry all scored runs to give the home team a 4-0 advantage against the visiting Bulldogs.
Boyceville was not about to let Elk Mound’s four-run inning go unchallenged, and sent around Micadin Kahl, Jayson Gonzales, James Palmer and Luke Knudtson to make the score four all after the top of the sixth.
The two teams engaged in a defensive battle through the seventh to force an eighth inning after the score remained tied at four.
Rosenthal was able to hold the Elk Mound defense together to keep the Bulldogs from scoring, before the offense stepped up to face Bryce Boda and Brady Nye in the bottom of the eighth.
A flubbed catch near third from a fly ball off Bergh’s bat gave Mohr just enough of an opening to race to home plate for the score. He was greeted there by several of his teammates for a brief celebration before taking possession of their latest piece of award hardware.
Kjellberg and Bergh led the team with a pair of RBIs and one double apiece, while Carter Pritchard logged both a run batted in and a double. Rosenthal, Black and Hunter Adleman also recorded doubles in the game.
Mohr pitched six and one-third innings, hurling the ball 105 times for four hits, four runs, and 11 strikeouts. Rosenthal took over for the final one and two-thirds innings, striking out four and allowing two hits over 35 pitches.
BOYCEVILLE 4, ELK MOUND 5
Boyceville…………0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 — 4
Elk Mound………..0 0 0 0 4 0 0 1 — 5