Prep baseball: Old Abes get walk-off win in wild showdown with Huskies
May 2—A wild crosstown showdown between the Eau Claire Memorial Old Abes and the North Huskies at Carson Park on Tuesday night ended in a walk-off win for Memorial.
After the Huskies scored two runs in the top of the seventh to tie up the game, Old Abes sophomore Blake Bugher knocked in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the bottom half of the inning to send his team home with a 6-5 victory.
To begin the game, the Old Abes took the lead right away in the first inning. Junior Sawyer Stein had an RBI single and sophomore Cooper Jesperson had a two-RBI single, and the Old Abes led 3-0.
In the third inning, North junior Logan Hesselman crossed home on a wild pitch to put the Huskies on the board and trim their deficit to 3-1.
The Old Abes got a run back in the bottom half of the inning, as Jesperson got his third RBI of the evening on a sacrifice fly to bring their lead back to three runs.
However, North struck right back in the next inning. Huskies senior Trenton Palmer knocked a two-run homer out of the park to bring the Huskies within one run, 4-3.
In the bottom half of the inning, Memorial senior Mason Stoik had an RBI single to make it 5-3 Old Abes.
In the seventh inning, the Huskies' lineup needed a rally to extend the game and their lineup came through.
North junior Maddux Geurts got a leadoff single, and then with one out senior Brayton Thillman drilled a near-home run to the wall in right field for a double and advanced Geurts to third, so the Huskies had the tying runs in scoring position.
Next up, Hesselman got an RBI hit to score Geurts, but Thillman got caught in a rundown in between third base and home and was tagged out. He lost his footing trying to get back to third after initially being waved home, and Memorial executed the rundown to get the second out.
However, the Huskies still managed to tie the game, as a ground ball to third by senior James Jarzynski was bobbled by Memorial junior Leo Lauscher, which allowed the tying run to score. The game went to the bottom of the seventh in a 5-5 tie.
The Old Abes' lineup came through in the clutch to walk-off winners in the bottom of the seventh. After a leadoff single by Stein and a double by Lauscher to advance him to third, Bugher knocked in senior Gavin Gerber, the courtesy runner for Stein, on a sacrifice fly to send Memorial home with a 6-5 win.
Both teams had eight total hits in the game. The Huskies had three errors in the field and the Old Abes had two.
With the win, the Old Abes have a 7-4 overall record, including 3-4 in Big Rivers Conference play. The Huskies are now 4-6 overall and 3-4 in Big Rivers Conference games.
The crosstown rivals will face off again at Carson Park on Thursday. First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m.
