This story is sponsored by: The Marshfield Tiger Booster Club
By Steve Pilz
For MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – The Marshfield Chaparrals amateur baseball team broke open a close game Sunday afternoon at by scoring eight runs in their last at-bat to beat the visiting Medford Moondogs 12-3 at Jack Hackman Field.
As has been their modus operandi all season, the Chaps got above average pitching on Sunday. Starter Jack Donahue gave up just three runs on seven hits in his seven innings of work. Ryan Metz faced just seven batters in his two innings of relief to finish off the win.
Marshfield’s bats produced just eight hits until the decisive eighth inning and it stranded 14 runners in the game.
The Moondogs drew first blood in the second inning stringing together three singles, climaxed by an RBI single by Skylar Anderson.
The Chaps answered that in the bottom of the inning by taking advantage of some shoddy Medford pitching.
Sam Schwanebeck led off with a walk and moved to second on a Lucius Messerschmidt single. Alex Steines moved the runners with a sacrifice bunt and Bobby Pilz drove in Schwanebeck by beating out an infield single. Riley Erickson and Curtis Englebrecht both drove in runs by walking before Medford changed pitchers and ended the inning trailing 3-1.
From there the Chaps offense stagnated. In the fifth, Steins scored on a wild pitch to make it 4-2.
The Moondogs got a single run in the fourth, and when they got another in the top of the seventh on a double by Brett Paul and a sacrifice fly to centerfield by Kole Karaba, to cut Marshfield’s lead to 4-3.
Metz took over in the eighth and overcame a walk and a single to coax an inning ending 6-4-3 double play to set the stage for the Chaps to tie their second-biggest inning of the season.
Brent Mueller had pitched 2 1/3 innings of scoreless relief but the eighth was cruel to him as Justin Rayburn, Erickson, Englebrecht and Luke Wirtz all singled, followed by a Schwanebeck walk (his fourth of the game), effectively chasing Mueller.
Reliever Taylor Reinhardt fared little better, throwing a couple of wild pitches. The Chaps sent 13 batters to the plate with Englebrecht getting another RBI single in the eighth and the Chaps went up 12-3.
Metz closed the door in the ninth and the Chaps had a blow-out win evening their record at 5-5.
“Today, we had the timely hitting that we’ve been missing at times, although it came late,” said Chaparrals manager Justin Rayburn. “Our pitching carried us again but we seem to be coming around offensively.”
Ryan Paul went 3-for-4 for the Moondogs and teammate Brett Paul was 2-for-4 with a double.
Messerschmidt went 3-for-4, Englebrecht was 3-fo- 5 with 3 RBIs, and Pilz went 2-for-3 with an RBI.
The Chaparralss will play a rescheduled game in Tomahawk next Sunday, July 9, at 3 p.m.
Chaparrals 12, Moon Dogs 3
Medford 010 100 100 – 3 8 2
Marshfield 030 010 08x – 12 13 2
WP: Jack Donahue. LP: Ryan Paul.
SO: Donahue (7 inn.) 1, Ryan Metz (2 inn.) 1; Kole Karaba (3 inn.) 2. BB: Donahue 3, Metz 1; Paul (1 2/3 inn.) 5, Karaba 2, Brent Mueller (2 1/3 inn.) 3, Taylor Reinhardt (1 inn.) 2.
Records: Marshfield 5-5 overall, 3-4 Dairyland League.