New Richmond baseball fine tunes its game against Eau Claire Memorial

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There were set objectives when the New Richmond baseball team played at Carson Park in Eau Claire last Friday against Memorial’s Old Abes.

The final score might show a 10-1 loss for the Tigers, but there were more positives than negatives out of the game for the Orange and Black.

The loss gave the Tigers an 8-11 record to end the regular season. They were scheduled to play at Wisconsin Rapids on Tuesday to open WIAA Division 1 tournament play. The Tigers are seeded 12th in the sectional tournament bracket while Rapids is seeded fifth. The winner of Tuesday’s game will play again at 5 p.m. this Thursday at Chippewa Falls. The Cards are the fourth seed in the sectional and they received an opening round bye.

Tiger coach Chad Fehrman had a number of objectives laid out for the game at Carson Park and the team achieved most of those objectives. Memorial scored all 10 of its runs in the fourth inning. Otherwise, the Tiger pitching staff got the work that it needed. Justin Johnson started on the mound and performed well until the fourth. That’s when he began to miss his targets up in the strike zone. Memorial coaxed Tiger pitchers for six walks and five hits in the 10-run inning. Memorial is a formidable opponent, winning the Big Rivers Conference title and earning the second seed in the sectional tournament bracket.

Reliever Hayden Nelson, the third pitcher to work in the fourth inning, settled into a groove after that, blanking the Old Abes on one hit over the last three innings.

Defense was a problem that finally led the coaches to go to a younger infield defensive alignment in recent games. The coaches wanted to get the defense another game to gel together. That was accomplished, with just one error committed against Memorial.

The Tiger hitters were also battle tested in this game. They faced Memorial’s top pitcher, Jake Sparger. The Tigers were able to get four hits against him.

“Sparger threw in the mid-80s,” Fehrman said. “He could bring it, but the balls we hit, we hit hard.”

New Richmond’s run was scored in the fourth inning. Max Skatrud led off with a double. Andy Kittel walked and Geoff Peck was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Dalton Sabby singled home Skatrud for the Tigers’ only run.

Tags: sports, tigers, baseball, prep