A’s Bring Home WABC Championship
Posted: July 15, 2018
Champions.
It doesn’t matter what it is – when you compete and come out on top, it always feels good, and the A’s needed a reason to start feeling good again.
The past few weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster for the A’s, but that changed this weekend.
After beating Everest Friday, and splitting between Pewaukee and Burlington Saturday, the A’s won Pool D and advanced to the WABC semi-finals where they faced the Chicago Rippers.
The A’s took care of business against Chicago, winning 5-4 to advanced to the championship.
In the other bracket, the Appleton Legends knocked off the Kenosha Kings to make the WABC championship an all-NEWBL affair.
Things weren’t looking great for the A’s, as they found themselves trailing 2-0 entering the sixth inning – only two innings left to turn things around.
Chris Saltzman led off the inning. After taking ball one, hitting two foul and then taking ball two, Saltzman was hit by the next pitch to put him on first.
Next up was Jake Arens, who took the first pitch he saw and ripped a double, letting Saltzman get to third.
Up to the plate came Harry Steldt. Steldt didn’t disappoint, as he homered to deep left field, giving the A’s a 3-2 lead entering the bottom half of the sixth.
The A’s added a few more insurance runs in the top of the seventh when TD Walker laced another double to right field, scoring Ben Gordon and Ryan Fields, giving the A’s a 5-2 lead heading to the bottom half of the seventh and final inning.
With Manager Derek Loomans entering this seventh inning on the mound, the leadoff batter reached on an error. Loomans then induced a pop out before giving up a single. After another fly out, Appleton scored on a line drive to center field, giving the Legends runners on first and third with two out.
After a first-pitch ball, Loomans got the ground ball he was looking for, getting the third out and complete game victory while giving the A’s their first championship of any kind since winning the Langsdorf League title in 2014.
Steldt was named the tournament’s MVP.
The A’s won’t get a lot of time to enjoy the tournament championship, however, as the team will turn is focus back to climbing out of the bottom of the Wisconsin State League standings with home games Monday and Tuesday against the De Pere Dodgers and West Allis Nationals respectively, then a home and home with the Oshkosh Giants (Wednesday on the road, Thursday back at home).
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.
