The Sheboygan A's wrapped up play in the Wisconsin Amateur Baseball Classic Tournament over the weekend, finishing the weekend 1-1-1 in the rain-plagued tournament.
On Friday, they opened with a remarkably well-pitched 2-0 win over a solid Milwaukee Azteca Jaguar team.
Andrew Nuanes turned in another sparkling performance, holding the Jags to three hits. One of those hits came after a hit batsman to start the seventh and prompted skipper Derek Loomans to make a change. He called on Eliott Danhoff who got one out when the Jaguars moved the runners up with a sacrifice bunt and then fanned the next two hitters for the save.
A hit batsman, error and hits by Ryan Fields and Drew Lechnir got the A’s the only two runs they would need.
The A's had been preparing for pre-scheduled pool play to continue Saturday, but all tournament games Friday in West Bend were rained out, forcing a complete restructure of the tournament to get the tournament in. This meant the A's would now be placed into a modified bracket, next facing the Kewaskum A's.
On Saturday, Kewaskum coupled four walks with two hits to score four times in the second inning. In the top of the third Alex Dee drove in a run for the A’s with a base hit. After that, Kyle Moyer and Andrew Neu of Madison College faced off and neither allowed another run. But it was the A's from Kewaskum who won the game, their third victory of the A's from Sheboygan this season.
After Saturday's loss to Kewaskum, the A's found themselves in the consolation bracket paired up against Northeastern Wisconsin Leaguemate, the Appleton Legends, in an early Sunday morning contest. And it will go down as one of the wildest games in A’s history.
Appleton nailed A’s starter Mason Maziarka with 9 runs in the first inning. What made it even worse than that was that Appleton had veteran lefthander BJ Chase on the mound. Things looked bleak.
Eight straight A’s went down before Drew Lechnir tripled in the third but was stranded there.
Then the A’s made a game of it, scoring four runs in the fourth inning. And they weren’t finished. They got two more in the fifth. And then came the sixth.
A heavy gray cloud cover darkened the field and the inning began with the first two A’s hitters going down on infield outs. But then came three straight hits, a walk, another hit, and another walk and the A’s had scored four times after two were out to tie the game at 10 as Appleton finally got that elusive third out.
While all this was going on, Jacob Bonin who had come on in relief of Maziarka in the first inning had quieted the Legends, save for one third-inning run. But that was it. With the scoreboard showing 10-10 the sky was showing lightning and umpires stopped the game and the tournament.
The 2019 season, presented by Meijer, continues as the A’s are in Green Bay tonight to take on the Storm in a Northeastern Wisconsin Baseball League matchup. The A's sit at 2-1 in the NEWBL, while Green Bay is 0-5. The A's then host Manitowoc Tuesday before taking three days off for the 4th of July.
