Baseball: Miscues plague Wildcats in sectional semifinal loss (8 photos)

Pitching and defense have been the hallmarks of the River Falls baseball team this season. In Tuesday’s Division 1 sectional semifinal against Stevens Point in Marshfield, they got the pitching, but the defense? Not so much.

Four Wildcat errors led to five unearned runs for Stevens Point, and despite outhitting the Panthers 4-3, the Cats mustered just one run in a season-ending 5-1 loss.

“We didn't play as consistent defensively as we have this year, and sometimes you get to this magnitude of a season and one little hop here, one little hop there, can change the game and change the season,” head coach Ryan Bishop said. “We played our tails off but it just wasn’t our best game.”

Wildcat starter Keenan Mork struck out 11 while allowing just one hit in 4 ⅓-innings of work. That one hit was a two-out single in the first inning, and was followed by a two-base Wildcat error and passed ball that gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead.

Stevens Point made it a 2-0 game in the bottom of the third on a walk, sacrifice bunt and error.

River Falls cut the deficit in half in the top of the fifth when Henry Zimmerman led off the inning with a single and Zach Cleveland reached on an error. Thatcher Anderson bunted both runners over and Ben Johnson followed with a single to drive in Zimmerman from third.

But with Cleveland at third and Johnson at first and one out, Teddy Norman hit a hard hit ball to second that the Panthers turned into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning.

“A couple couple feet one way or the other on that double play ball and we score the tying run and it changes things,” Bishop noted. “Instead all of a sudden the threat is over and you're still down by one.”

Instead, Stevens Point scored three more runs in the bottom of the inning to push its lead to 5-1.

Eli Condon replaced Mork on the mound after a one-out walk and recorded the second out of the inning on a fielder’s choice. But two more Wildcat errors, a double and a single resulted in three Panther runs.

The Wildcats got a two-out, pinch-hit double from Elijah Baker in the top of the seventh and Anderson reached on an error to put runners on the corners but Johnson’s long fly ball to center was run down for the final out of the game.

In addition to outhitting the Panthers, the Wildcats left seven runners on base, including runners in scoring position in six of the seven innings.

River Falls reached the sectional semifinals as the No. 5 seed while the top-seeded Pointers went on to defeat No. 2 Hudson, 6-5, in the sectional championship game later Tuesday afternoon to punch its ticket to state.

Bishop said the Wildcats have nothing to hang their heads about after finishing the season 18-7, winning a regional title, and reaching the sectional semifinals.

“We love these guys and they play their tails off,” he said. “Everybody comes to the park trying to do their absolute best, and when it doesn't go the way that you hope it does, it hurts. But there's no finger pointing, there's no blaming. “It just just didn't go our way today.”

Bishop also used a baseball metaphor to describe how the Wildcat seniors may be feeling after the loss.

“In the big picture of life, these seniors are just rounding first base,” he said. “It feels like they're failing to reach home, but in reality they're just rounding first base. And they’ve got a lifetime to get home.”