A’s Jolt Appleton With 8-1 Victory
Posted: August 6, 2013
APPLETON – The Sheboygan A’s pounded out 13 hits in cruising to an 8-1 win Monday night in the opener of the best of three Northeastern Wisconsin League semifinal series. The A’s can clinch a berth in the NEW finals with a win tonight at Wildwood Park.
Jake Schaefer gets the start tonight. First pitch is 7:30 p.m.
In the other semifinal match-up, Menasha took a 1-0 lead with a 13-3 victory over Green Bay.
The 13 hits were only half of the story as Derek Loomans gave the A’s a great start, firing six scoreless innings and allowing only two hits. Sam Raff, Peter Sommerfeld and Max Kramsky each pitched an inning to wrap up the game.
A couple Appleton errors gave the A’s their first run in the second, but in the fourth they really went to work.
Harry Steldt and Chad Langley led off the fourth with base hits and Sam Mattheis moved them up with an infield out. Then Frank Pietrantonio, whose contributions over the past month have been a major factor in the A’s turnaround, got down a perfect squeeze bunt to score the hard charging Steldt. Jeremy McCarty followed with a base hit to score Langley.
The A’s bumped their lead to 6-0 with three more in the fifth. This time Luke Maldonado and Cole Heili led off with base hits. Both scored on Steldt’s long double. Mattheis singled after that, but Steldt had to hold at third. That was a momentary stop, though as he scored on the back end of a double steal.
The A’s wrapped up their run production when they tallied two runs after two outs. Greg Rhude walked, and then Maldonado, Heili and Steldt got successive base hits.
Steldt drove in three runs with three hits, and Maldonado, Heili, Langley and Grant Evans all had two hits. Chris Erm had two doubles to lead Appleton, which managed only six hits all night for losing pitcher Tim Harikkala.
The A’s take a 35-22 record into tonight’s game.
The Sheboygan A's are members of the Wisconsin State League and Northeastern Wisconsin Baseball League. The A's have helped develop more than 43 players that have reached professional baseball, including 2002 World Series Champion Jarrod Washburn (Anaheim Angels). All Sheboygan A's home games are played at Wildwood Baseball Park in Sheboygan. Connect with the A's on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
