Published: June 20, 2015
Classic kicks off in West Bend
Junior Warhawks stay calm after early trouble
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
Faced with early adversity, Germantown U12 Junior Warhawks
coach Steve Wagie kept his team calm.
The team delivered.
The Warhawks knocked off the West Bend Warriors, 7-4, in the
first poolplay game of the West Bend Father’s Day Baseball Classic on Friday
evening at West Bend Little League Complex.
“It’s real big; it’s real big to win the first game of any
tournament,” Wagie said. “It gets you in the right frame of mind moving forward
and it gives the kids a bunch of confidence.”
The Warriors (8-14) scored three runs in the top of the
first inning off two errors by Germantown (16-9).
Matt Thill led off the game for West Bend with a double.
Josh Sina followed and reached base on a dropped third strike and an error by
the catcher that allowed Thill to score.
Sina later scored on an RBI single by Logan Smith to give
the Warriors a 3-0 lead.
Germantown got out of the inning with a double play.
“I told them to keep their heads; keep fighting,” Wagie
said. “I told them we can do this again; keep playing and keep playing hard.”
Germantown got a pair of hits in the bottom of the first,
but didn’t score.
But in the Warhawks’ half of the second inning, they put the
pressure on the Warriors, one of 61 teams trying to win the tournament which
continues today and Sunday with 97 games.
Germantown got its first four batters of the inning on base,
starting with a walk by Andrew Butler.
Back-to-back errors by West Bend allowed Nate Conrad and
Brad Kohn to reach base, then Owen Meyer hit an RBI single. Matthew Fitzpatrick
added an RBI single, as did Drew Van Fossen.
“I thought our team did a nice job of coming back; pecking
away, putting some runs up, little at a time, not trying to do it all at once,”
Wagie said. “The defense turned around and came up and made some nice plays.
“In the end pitching came through. I thought they did a nice
job.”
By tournament rule, each pitcher is allowed six outs.
Once Germantown got out front, its defense and pitching took
over.
West Bend had three hits in the first inning. It had three
in the remaining five innings and they all came in the fourth inning when West
Bend chipped at the lead to make it 5-4 in favor of Germantown.
In that inning, Michael Mollwitz had an RBI single to drive
in Kaden Martin, who started the inning with a single.
Nick Ninmann pitched the first two innings for Germantown.
Van Fossen and Butler combined to allow one run on three
hits in four innings, walked two and struck out eight.
Butler struck out five of the six batters he faced in the
fifth and sixth innings.
“Our catchers were able to put a location down and our pitchers
were able to hit it,” Wagie said.
Going into the tournament, Germantown had won each of its
last two games. Plus, the team has had some players come back from injury,
including some pitchers.
“We were playing pretty well and our defense was playing pretty
well,” Wagie said. “Our pitching was starting to come around. I thought they
were playing well.”
As U10 players, Germantown won this tournament. Wagie said
seven of the players on this year’s U12 team were on the tournament that year.
The Warhawks beat the West Bend Thunder in the final.
“It meant a lot,” Wagie said of winning the tournament,
adding the competition is good at the tournament, which adds to the difficulty
to win it.
This season, the Warhawks have played in three tournaments.
They took second in one and third in the others.
The Warriors have one tournament victory under their belt:
the Main Street Classic in Jackson.
Thill, Tyler Young, Martin, Smith, Mollwitz and Jacob Princl
had the six hits for West Bend.
Ethan Sawyer was 2 for 3 for Germantown with a run scored.
Collin Thomey was 2 for 3 with two RBIs.
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