Day two of the State Spring Baseball Tournament featured the Divisions 2, 3 and 4 semifinals at Neuroscience Group Field in Grand Chute Wednesday.
Division 2
Ty Yewman turned in a dominating pitching performance to propel Notre Dame (20-10) into the Division 2 title game with an 8-1 triumph over River Valley.
Yewman struck out 17 batters, which ties for the second most in a Division 2 game in State Tournament history. He brought a perfect game into the fifth and yielded just three hits in the game. The only run surrendered came home on a bad-hop single by Cole Mahoney over the second baseman.
The Tritons opened the game with a run in each of the first two innings. Noah Wleczyk tripled home Sean Green for the first run, and Nick Martzhal doubled in Gage Garrity to give Notre Dame a two-run advantage. The Tritons piled on insurance runs with two in the sixth inning and four more in the seventh to clinch the victory.
Wleczyk went 2-for-2 with a double and a triple, and Martzhal drove in a pair of runs with two hits to lead the Tritons offense, which out-hit River Valley 10-3. Mahoney had two of the three Blackhawk hits.
Milwaukee Lutheran (18-13) rode the left arm of Nick Winter to the Division 2 championship game in a 1-0 blanking of West Salem (23-5) in the semifinals.
Winter tossed a one-hitter, an infield single to second by Ethan Severson in the fifth inning was the only hit he allowed. Severson was the only Panther to reach third base, but was stranded when Winter recorded one of his eight strikeouts to end the threat.
The only run of the game came on a two-out single to left center with two outs in the fifth inning by Christian Gerner. The soft fly ball popped out of the glove of a diving Bailey Valencia. It scored Trey Volkman from second base, who was pinch-running for designated hitter Sam Dekker who singled.
Division 3
Aquinas advanced to the final in Division 3 with a convincing 11-3 win over Marathon in the semifinals.
The Blugolds (27-3) jumped out to a 2-0 in the first inning sparked by a run-scoring triple by Alex Dee, who later scored on a sacrifice fly. They increased their lead to 4-0 with a pair of unearned runs in the fifth inning.
After Marathon scored a run in the bottom half of the fifth inning on an RBI single by Karter Underwood, Aquinas busted the game open in the sixth inning with seven runs on four to expand the lead to 11-1. The big blow was a two-run double by Dee.
The Red Raiders (26-3) avoided application of the 10-run rule in the bottom of the sixth by scoring twice. Both runs came on a Matt Braun double.
Dee led the Blugolds at the plate, going 3-for-3 and finishing a home run short of the cycle. He also drove in three runs and scored three times. Braun had three hits and a pair of RBI for Marathon, which out-hit Aquinas 9-7 in the game. Underwood and Landen Williamson chipped in with two hits apiece.
Alex Schulte pitched five innings to get credited with the win on the mound for the Blugolds. Dee pitched two scoreless innings in relief.
Last year’s Division 4 champion Lake Country Lutheran advances to the Division 3 title game this year with a 9-3 victory over Chequamegon in the semifinals.
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