×

Krusaders Dealt First Loss By Ohio Valley Regional Champions, 15-5

Morning Blues

Jamestown’s Blake Herman, right, takes an inadvertent glove to the face from Eau Claire catcher Austin McGraw as he slides into home plate during the first inning of Tuesday morning’s Babe Ruth 13-year-old World Series game at Diethrick Park. Herman was safe on the play, because McGraw did not have possession of the ball. P-J photo by Scott Kindberg

Keegan Catt swung and delivered a base hit to center field in the first inning of Tuesday morning’s Babe Ruth 13-year-old World Series game.

The single drove in a run — Eau Claire, Wisconsin’s fourth of its at-bat — which prompted someone to yell, “Are you awake now?”

The 13-year-olds from the Ohio Valley responded as if on cue:

“YEAH!” they yelled from the third-base dugout at Diethrick Park.

No one could argue that.

Jamestown third baseman Chase Haglund, left, tags out Eau Claire’s Keegan Catt during the first inning of Tuesday morning’s Babe Ruth 13-year-old World Series game at Diethrick Park in Jamestown. Photo by Barb Flood

Shrugging off the 8:30 a.m. start time — the weather-related postponement of Monday night’s game forced the early first pitch yesterday — Eau Claire responded with seven more runs in the second inning and rolled to a 15-5 six-inning victory over Jamestown.

The win, courtesy of a fine pitching performance by Evan Weiler, boosted Eau Claire’s record in the American Division of pool play to 2-0, before it suffered a 7-5 setback to West Fargo North Dakota later in the day (see related story this page). The Krusaders, meanwhile, fell to 2-1 in pool play, heading into tonight’s 7 o’clock game against Hawaii Kai (2-1).

“Hopefully we hit the ball a little better (today) than we did (Tuesday),” Jamestown manager Shane Swan said. “We have to come to play, for sure. If we play like we did today, no I don’t know as if we’re gong to beat them, but we’re going to clean some things up and we’ll be OK.”

The Krusaders jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning against Eau Claire, highlighted by an RBI double by Branston Lindquist and a run-scoring single by Nash Luther, but Eau Claire responded in a big way in the bottom of the first, sending eight batters to the plate while taking advantage of three Krusaders’ errors to forge ahead 4-2.

Jamestown regained the lead, 5-4, in the top of the second, courtesy of a double by Dominic Weber, who was promptly driven home via Chase Haglund’s single. Two batters later, Blake Herman’s double scored Haglund, but the Krusaders’ lead was short-lived.

Krusaders’ catcher Branston Lindquist blocks a pitch in the dirt. Photo by Barb Flood

In the bottom of the second inning, Eau Claire sent 10 batters to the plate and scored seven runs. The big hits in that rally were a three-run double by Austin McGraw and a two-run single by Weiler. Armed with an 11-5 lead, it never looked back.

“It took us a while to get going,” Eau Claire manager John Bugher said, “but once we did it was beautiful.”

Weiler, his team’s Ron Tellefsen Player of the Game, and Blake Bugher (two RBIs), the manager’s son, each had two hits for the winners, but it was Weiler’s performance on the mound that was most impressive. Shrugging off a shaky first two innings, he didn’t allow a run over the final five frames, giving his team’s pitching staff a break.

“He pitched well,” John Bugher said. “You never know what you’re going to get from Evan. He’s on one day, he’s off the next, but he locked it in and did very well.”

Noted Swan: “We watched him warm up in the bullpen and he was around the plate the entire time down there. We started out hitting well and then he started throwing more curveballs, and getting us offspeed. He was 100 percent deserving of the Player of the Game, for sure.”

No one had more than one hit for the Krusaders. Haglund was their Ron Tellefsen Player of the Game.

“We had four errors that cost us nine runs in critical moments in the game,” Swan said. “We take those four plays away, we’re right in it. … Put that on top of us not hitting the way we normally hit so, yeah, we’ll be fine.”

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today