EM baseball ends regular season with pair of losses
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ELK MOUND senior Nate Lew connected for a double on this hit during the second inning of the Mounders’ road game in Boyceville on June 7. The Bulldogs clinched the outright conference title with the 9-4 win. —photo by Shawn DeWitt
by Marlys Kruger
Sports Correspondent
Losing your final two games is not exactly the way you want to head into the playoffs, but that’s what the Elk Mound baseball team will be doing, after dropping a 9-4 contest at Boyceville June 7, and a day later losing to Fall Creek 6-4.
The loss to Boyceville gave the Bulldogs the outright Dunn-St. Croix Conference title with a 13-1 record while the Mounders finished at 10-4, good for third place in conference play.
Seeded second, Elk Mound, 12-4 overall, received a bye in the first round of Division 3 regionals and will play at home June 15 against the winner of the Eau Claire Regis (#3) and Durand (#6) quarterfinal contest.
Boyceville
These two teams have battled each other for the conference title the past few seasons but this year the Bulldogs have had control of things.
The Mounders did give them a scare when they started the game with four runs off Division 1 recruit Walker Retz. Avery Kaanta and Ryan Bohl started with back-to-back singles, Nate Lew reached on a fielder’s choice,Jerome Delikowski moved the runners up on a Bulldog error, Kaden Russo banged a single and another Boyceville error gave the Mounders a 4-0 lead.
Boyceville, however, cut the lead in half when their other Division 1 recruit Trett Joles led off the bottom of the first with a homer and Retz doubled and came in on a passed ball.
Boyceville added a single run in the third, four more in the fifth, and finished it off with two in the sixth.
Meanwhile, Retz regained his control and after giving up a double to Lew in the second and a pair of singles to Joseph Javanovich and Kaanta in the fourth, he stranded those runners with strikeouts.
Retz was relieved in the sixth by Trevor Hollister, who had a pair of solo home runs in the game, and only one Mounder reached base off him, as Javanovich drew a walk but didn’t get past first.
Russo started on the mound and allowed three runs on four hits with eight strikeouts and five walks in four innings. Bohl finished the game and gave up six runs on six hits, with three free passes.
Fall Creek
The Crickets held a 4-0 lead until the bottom of the third when the Mounders broke through for a run. Ethan Johnson was hit by a pitch, stole second, and came in on a single by Kaanta.
Fall Creek increased their lead at 6-1 but the Mounders showed some spark in the bottom of the sixth when they came up with three runs. With one out, Kaanta singled, Bohl was plunked by a pitch, Lew and Delikowski both spanked singles, and the big blow came from Russo on a double. A pair of strikeouts followed to end the inning, however.
A final rally was thwarted when Kaanta and Bohl hit back-to-back singles with two outs in the seventh. But a ground ball out ended the game with the runners on base.
Kaanta smacked three hits and brought in a run while scoring once and Russo had two hits with an RBI. Lew and Delikowski knocked in the other Mounders’ runs. Kaanta, Roder, and Delikowsi shared the pitching duties and gave up ten hits combined. Delikowski had the only two strikeouts, both in the sixth inning.