Home tournament: Lakeland youth baseball teams experience highs and lows

Lakeland youth baseball hosted its second tournament of the summer with three Lakeland teams in action last weekend.

The Lakeland 10U, 12U and 14U teams all played in a tournament Saturday, June 13 through Sunday, June 14 at the Minocqua Park Complex.

10U

Lakeland’s 10U team went 1-1-1. They tied Wisconsin Rapids 10-10 (time limit), beat Arrowhead 17-4 and lost to Northwoods 16-1.

“I’m super proud of how the boys showed up,” Lakeland coach Jesse Frisch said. “They’ve been working hard in practice and just applying everything from practice to the games. For instance, we scored in our first tournament, we scored two runs in three games. This tournament, I think, we scored 28 in three games. They’re getting how to play the game the right way.”

Frisch was encouraged by his team’s effort in the 10-10 tie with Wisconsin Rapids. A back-and-forth game, each team scored in four of the five innings played. Lakeland started the game with a 4-0 lead before Wisconsin Rapids scored five runs in the bottom of the first inning.

Lakeland led 10-8 going into the bottom of the fifth inning. Wisconsin Rapids tied the game at 10 apiece, looking for more. With Joey Frisch on the mound, Lakeland closed the inning out without allowing the winning run to score. The game ended in a tie due to time limit.

“We got a major focus at practice on just having a positive attitude, positive effort,” coach Frisch said. “Those are the two things you can be in control of. Right at the end, it was bases loaded. They had bases loaded. We had no outs. They would have walked us off had they scored a run. So the boys got out of that jam, and that was, that’s like real baseball, that’s fun to watch. They’re just a really good team.”

In the game against Wisconsin Rapids, Lakeland’s Wesley Thrasher went 2-for-2 with two runs scored. Sawyer Reed also picked up two hits with two runs scored and an RBI.

Lakeland’s bats broke out in a big way in the 17-4 win over Arrowhead. Lakeland scored 14 runs in the bottom of the first inning and never looked back.

“We’ve been really focusing on all of our fundamentals at practice, but everybody in the lineup contributed. Earlier in the year, it was maybe the top half was doing most of the damage, and we were striking out a lot and stuff like that,” coach Frisch said. “Now we’re hitting the ball. We’re putting the ball in play, and good things happen when you put the ball in play.”

All 12 batters in Lakeland’s lineup had at least one hit and run scored. Nico Tippett led Lakeland with three RBIs. Thrasher had a team-high three runs scored and three hits. Levi Grueschow and Axton Davids had two RBIs each.

12U

Lakeland went 1-2 with 12-2 and 4-3 losses to the Iron Rangers and a 10-7 win over Portage.

“It was up and down,” Lakeland coach Tom Lorenzen said. “Our first game was, it was kind of a dud. We didn’t hit the ball like we could. The second game we played we really took it to that Portage team. We had good pitching and defense, and we got a win there. Our third game against Hurley, who beat us the first game, that was a very good 12U baseball game. We had the lead 3-2 going into the bottom of sixth inning. We were down 2-0. We fought back to take that lead, and again, we had good pitching, good defense, and it was just a few little things did us in.”

The ball jumped off the bat in Lakeland’s 10-7 win over Portage. Lakeland hit three home runs total with back-to-back shots coming from Lukas Lorenzen and Rilen Sauer in a seven-run second inning. It was Lukas Lorenzen’s second homer of the season, the first for Rilen Sauer. Ethan Davids later hit a home run, the first of his career. 

“(Rilen) had actually been hurt for part of the year,” coach Lorenzen said. “He had a broken thumb, so he’s just getting back to healthy now. Ethan Davids — that again, that was his first home run. That kid works so hard and see him hit that and the emotions on his face —it was just great to see.”

Lukas Lorenzen and Rilen Sauer had a team-high two hits and two RBIs against Portage. Ethan Davids led the team with two runs scored. All nine Lakeland batters scored at least one run. Rilen Sauer got the win on the mound, pitching two innings and giving up two hits, one earned run and two walks with two strikeouts.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Portage cut Lakeland’s lead to 10-7. Lakeland turned to Hudson Chupita on the mound. He picked up the last out to seal Lakeland’s only win of the tournament.

“The biggest thing, the overall group especially with kids this age, is learning to deal with the failure,” coach Lorenzen said. “Baseball is a game of failure, and the best players fail more than they don’t fail. So our biggest hurdle is learning how to deal with that and overcome that and putting a bad play behind us, and we’re a lot better than we were at that a couple years ago or even last year. Our goal is to just keep putting pressure on teams, keep winning games and treat every rep and every at-bat and every pitch as an opportunity to get better.”

14U

Lakeland went 1-2 with a 6-5 win over Wisconsin Rapids and an 11-2 loss to the DC Vandals and 17-2 loss to Plover.

“(The tournament went) not as well as we had hoped,” Lakeland coach Victor Gee said. “With one win and two losses, it wasn’t exactly where we wanted to be, especially in a home tournament, but we had very good competition in this tournament. It’s an A-level tournament so we can be competitive at that level, but we have to be playing our best game when we’re playing those kind of teams.”

Lakeland needed a small comeback to get its win over Wisconsin Rapids. Down 3-1 in the top of the third inning, Lakeland outscored Wisconsin Rapids 5-2 in the remainder of the game to get the win.

With two outs in the top of the third, Lakeland’s Emmit Gee hit an RBI double to left field. Talon Poupart advanced Gee with a single. Then, Parker Ecklund delivered the big hit with a two-run triple.

Lakeland added to its lead in the top of the fourth inning. Four straight hits by William Schuman, Roman Piorkowski, Taitum Bauman and Levi Eslinger scored a run. With the bases loaded, Bryce Short got hit by a pitch to plate another run. Lakeland led 6-3.

Owen Sauer pitched a complete game. He went five innings, giving up seven hits, five runs, all earned, and five walks with four strikeouts. Wisconsin Rapids opened the bottom of the fifth inning with a home run, making the score 6-4. Later on, Wisconsin Rapids had the tying run at second base. Owen Sauer induced a fly ball to end the game and give Lakeland the win.

“We played a good game back and forth with them,” coach Gee said. “They kind of mounted a comeback in the final inning, and it got pretty tense there for a while. They were putting up a fight the whole way, and we managed to pull that one out. Whether that was a tournament game or just any other game, those are really the fun games to play are the ones that are close and very good competition.” 

Lakeland will host another tournament Saturday, June 27 through Sunday, June 28 at the Minocqua Park Complex.

“It’s always good to be playing at home in front of your home crowd,” coach Gee said. “The kids get a lot of friends and family showing up and things like that. It’s very good for the league in the standpoint of it brings a lot of money into the concession stand and the tournament revenue and all that, and it brings visitors into the area.”

Brett LaBore may be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].