Legion baseball: Eau Claire uses late surge to stave off elimination at state tournament
Jul. 29—Trailing by one entering the bottom of the sixth inning, the Eau Claire Pizza Hut Post 53 Legion baseball team needed a spark. It got several.
Eau Claire sent 12 batters to the plate in a seven-run sixth inning, storming past Middleton for a 15-9 victory in an elimination game at the AAA state tournament on Thursday in Sheboygan. The final surge capped a wild affair in which each team held leads at various points. Eau Claire threw the final punch, and extended its season by at least one more day as a result.
Jonah Hanson put Eau Claire ahead for good with a three-RBI double in the bottom of the sixth. But the fun was just getting started. Jack Redwine followed with a single before Mason Kostka, Luke Erickson and Jack Kein all added run-scoring doubles to put emphatic punctuation on the come-from-behind victory.
Eau Claire (21-14) will face Manitowoc at 7 p.m. on Friday in the final four of the state tournament. Post 53 will need a win to make it to Saturday's championship round, and needs three more in total to win a state title.
Eau Claire held an 8-2 lead after three innings, but Middleton stormed into the lead by scoring twice in the fourth and five more times in the fifth. Biagio Gargano hit a go-ahead, two-RBI double for the Cardinals in the fifth to put his side up 9-8.
Post 53 had a chance to tie or take the lead in the bottom of the fifth when it loaded the bases with two outs, but left them stranded to keep Middleton's one-run lead intact.
From there, Andrew Milner came on in relief for Eau Claire and quieted the Cardinals' loud bats with two shutout innings. His pitching kept Eau Claire in the game, and Post 53's vaunted offense took care of business in the sixth. They had seven hits in the inning, including two from Dylan O'Connell.
Milner struck out the side in the top of the seventh to clinch the victory and keep Eau Claire's season afloat. Post 53 starter Tyson Allen threw five innings and struck out five, but several errors led to seven unearned runs charged against him.
Eau Claire finished with 17 hits and has now scored 33 runs across three games at the state tournament. Several players throughout the lineup had multiple hits in Thursday's victory.
Eau Claire 15, Middleton 9
Middleton 101 250 0 — 9 6 2
Eau Claire 305 007 X — 15 17 4
WP: Andrew Milner. LP: Hayden Hellenbrand.
