Prep baseball: Hudson's Busson throws complete game shutout to silence Old Abes
Apr. 21—The Eau Claire Memorial Old Abes' lineup was stymied by a dominant performance by Hudson Raiders senior pitcher Jake Busson in the teams' second matchup of the season. Busson threw a complete game shutout to lead the Raiders to a 5-0 victory over the Old Abes at Carson Park.
The Old Abes remain winless in Big Rivers games, dropping to 0-4 in conference play with two losses against Hudson and two against River Falls. The Raiders moved to 3-1 in conference play with the win.
The Old Abes had five errors in the field in the game, which is how Hudson got on the board right away in the first inning.
A throwing error by junior third baseman Leo Lauscher allowed Hudson to take a 1-0 lead in the top of the first. However, the Raiders ended up stranding the bases loaded, as Memorial junior starting pitcher Sawyer Stein managed to pitch out of trouble by forcing a groundout to end the inning.
After Hudson senior Eli Ramthun reached second base to lead off the second from another Memorial throwing error, the Raiders tacked on another run after an RBI single by senior Payton Lawrence to lead 2-0.
The Old Abes' lineup had no answer for Busson, only managing one hit in the first six innings of the game, which was a leadoff single in the second inning by Stein.
In the fifth inning, the Raiders went up 3-0 after a sacrifice fly by junior Bradyn Bezanson. They had three hits and reached on another error in the inning, but Stein was able to pitch out of another jam to limit the damage and strand the runners to keep the game close.
Stein was replaced on the mound by Old Abe sophomore Blake Bugher in the sixth inning. After striking out the first two batters he faced, he walked the next two and then gave up an RBI single to Busson. Hudson led 4-0 going into the bottom of the sixth.
The Old Abes got their first runner on base since the second inning with two outs in the sixth when sophomore Grant Lokken was hit by a pitch. However, they weren't able to advance him, after a well hit grounder by senior Mason Stoik—that would have snuck through the infield for a base hit—made contact with Lokken as he was running towards second, resulting in the third out of the inning.
A throwing error trying to catch Raiders senior Wyatt Gavin stealing after a leadoff single resulted in another run for the Raiders in the top of the seventh, so the Old Abes trailed 5-0 with one more half inning left to try to solve Busson.
Busson completed his shutout with back to back strikeouts to end the game. Two Old Abes reached in the final inning—junior Leo Lauscher was hit by a pitch and Stein got an infield single—but strikeouts by Bugher and junior Tyler Iverson ended the Old Abes' hopes for a last inning rally.
The Raiders got 11 hits in the game and only surrendered two to the Old Abes—both Memorial hits were by Stein.
The Raiders were clean in the field with zero errors in the game, in contrast to five by the Old Abes.
In addition to pitching the complete game shutout, Busson also had three hits in the game and an RBI for Hudson. He completed the shutout in 76 pitches and had nine strikeouts.
Gavin led the Raiders lineup in the game, going 4-4 with three stolen bases.
