TAKE THREE! Cubs Advance To Tournament Final
Click the thumbnails to see photos and videos, and to hear post-game comments from Lucas Hall, Adrian Mercier, and Ashton Rymkos.
MARINETTE, Wis.---It was a long day for the Escanaba Cubs American Legion Baseball team on Saturday, but it was a successful one, as the Cubs won three games to advance to the championship game of the Firecracker Tournament in Marinette.
The Cubs beat the host Marinette team, 15-4, in the completion of a suspended game from Friday night's rainstorm, and then used good pitching to beat Menominee, 6-0, and Watertown, 6-1, at the Haase Field. The Cubs advance out of pool play with a 3-0 record and will face the other undefeated team, Green Bay Southwest, Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.
The game against Watertown, the third of the day for the Cubs and second of the afternoon for the Wisconsin squad, was a winner-take-all in pool play, with both teams needing a win and no tiebreakers in the equation.
Both teams stranded two baserunners in the first inning, and in the second inning, Cubs pitcher Lucas Hall got into trouble again when he walked the first two batters of the inning. But Hall gout out of trouble when Hunter Lamp hit a line drive back to the mound. Hall caught it, and threw to first base to get the runner who was hung out to dry off of the bag. Then a pop up on the next pitch, and it was still a 0-0 game.
The Cubs broke through in the top of the third inning without a solid hit. Nick Chiu led off with a bunt single, and then Chase Cloutier walked. Eli Gardner also bunted, and the first baseman misplayed the ball. That loaded the bases with no outs. Adrian Mercier followed with a ground ball to third, and that was also misplayed. The ball went into the outfield and two Cubs runs scored on the second error of the inning.
Bon LaChance followed with a sacrifice fly, and the Cubs had a 3-0 lead.
Hall got into trouble again in the bottom of the inning. Back-to-back singles and a hit batter loaded the bases with one out for Watertown. But Hall again wiggled out of trouble. He yielded one run on a Hayden Doede sacrifice fly, and then he beaned another batter to reload the bases. But Hall managed to get Keenan Eckert to ground out, leaving the bases loaded and Escanaba still clinging to a 3-1 lead entering the middle innings.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, Watertown again had two men on, but Hall struck out Matthew Hammond to strand two more baserunners.
“It was sketchy to be out there, for sure,” said Hall, who also pitched earlier in the day against Marinette. “The approach was just to let the defense work today. I wanted to go out there, and I wanted to throw strikes. Throw fastballs and keep it simple. It was scary. I didn't really think of them hitting it over our outfielders' heads. I just threw it right down the pipe, and let them work. I knew the strike calls were going both ways.”
Cubs Manager Jon Bintner went to the bullpen and brought in Adrian Mercier. The North Central High School graduate was dominating, retiring all nine men he faced to earn the pitching save. He struck out three of the nine batters.
“I battled back today,” said Mercier, who also finished a Cubs win earlier in the day against Marinette. “I just had to throw pitches. I was at shortstop and I was watching what Lucas was throwing. Just threw fastball, curveball. It worked. We're bluncing back (from a slow 0-3 start to the season) and coming together as a team.”
Escanaba essentially put the game away with three insurance runs in the top of the seventh inning, again, without any solid hits. Three straight walks started the inning, and LaChance drove in one with a groundout. Ashton Rymkos came through with a single that WAS hard-hit, bringing home two runs, and making it a 6-1 win. A long day of baseball had come to an end, and the Cubs advanced to the championship game.
Earlier in the day, Escanaba slipped past Menominee, 6-0. The young Red Wave players could not make any contact at all against Rymkos, who pitched all seven innings and nearly threw a no-hitter. Chase Monette had the only hit of the game for Menominee.
The Cubs scored a run in the bottom of the first inning when Mercier was safe on an error, LaChance doubled, and Rymkos followed with what appeared to be a two-run single. But after an appeal, the umpires said that LaChance missed a base, so his run was wiped off the board. Escanaba still led, 1-0.
Escanaba took a 2-0 lead in the third inning on a bases loaded walk to Rymkos, and Matt Kaven was safe on an error, bringing home another Cubs run. In the fifth inning, another bases loaded walk, this time to Hall, made it 4-0, and Chiu followed with an RBI single to make it 5-0. Bryce Blixt then got a base hit to bring Jake Mileski home, but Hall was thrown out at the plate. Still, a 6-0 lead was good enough for Rymkos to hold, as he struck out ten batters, walked three, and allowed just one base hit.
“I pitched good, the team hit good, and our defense was phenomenal,” Rymkos said. “I was very happy with how our defense played. Bryce (Blixt) played a good game behind the plate. He knows what he's doing. He knows how to talk, and knows what to call. It's kind of weird throwing to a lefty. Fastball was working, the curveball was freezing them, too. They were swinging and missing at every fastball I threw, too. I was blowing it right by them.”
Monette, a Stephenson High School sophomore, took the loss for the Red Wave, who fell to 6-10 on the season. Monette allowed six runs (four earned) on seven hits and seven walks in 5 2/3 innings before reaching his 105-pitch limit in the sixth nning.
The day started bright and early for the Cubs, the completion of a suspended game at 9:30 am against Marinette. The tournament grounds crew arrived at 7 in the morning to a pair of fields that were completely under water. They worked impressively to pump standing water off the fields, used a ton of diamond dry, and then got some help from Mother Nature as the sun came out to help in drying the field.
Escanaba entered the morning with a 6-2 lead in the top of the fifth inning from Friday night's rain-soaked ending, and the game was quickly out of reach for Marinette when two pitchers combined to walk in four runs, plus force in another run with a hit batter.
The 11-2 Cubs lead was cut to 11-4 with two runs in the bottom of the fifth inning off Hall, but Mercier came in and rolled over the Marinette lineup in the sixth and seventh innings, retiring six of the seven batters he faced (allowing just one walk).
“To be honest, I was kind of sore going to the mound today,” Mercier said. “I mean, I just battled. I threw my fastball, and I actually learned my change-up again. And that started working against them. And I threw my curveball, and that was tailing.”
The highlight from there was LaChance, who clubbed a grand slam home run off Marinette pitcher Ethan Doubek in the top of the seventh inning. It was LaChance's second grand slam home run in the past eight days as he continued to scald the ball.
And now, the Cubs will play for a championship Sunday afternoon against Green Bay Southwest.
“I feel great about it,” Hall said. “I'm glad that I could come out here and help. I've never been in a championship game. Only districts (high school) and that's about it.”
“It's going to be tough,” Mercier said. “But we're going to battle.”
“We're on a win streak,” Rymkos said. “We're hot. Bats are moving. Defense is playing great. We're pitching great. Everything is going good for us right now.”
And now the boys hope that continues for one more game, and to bring back the trophy of a tournament that has been very difficult for UP teams to win over the years. The Escanaba-Green Bay championship game starts at 2:00 ET and it will be broadcast live on FM-93.5, AM-600, and on-line at www.rrnsports.com.
