Wood Ducks’ offense can’t keep pace with Hayward

It was another busy baseball weekend for the Minocqua Wood Ducks, as the offense couldn’t keep up in an 11-1 defeat in the weekend’s opening game June 27 at the Hayward Hawks. The home Hawks plated runs in six of the seven innings, as Minocqua was able to push one across in the fifth.

A second game in Marshfield on Sunday afternoon extended the team’s four-game losing streak to five after a 4-2 loss. That put Minocqua at the bottom of the Dairyland League Large Division standings at 2-6.

In Hayward, the offense produced seven hits but only turned that into one run, while Hayward had 11 runs on nine hits. This was an out-of-league game for the Wood Ducks. The first run crossed the plate in the bottom of the second on a sacrifice fly. The Hawks made it 3-0 in the third with two RBI singles against starting Wood Ducks pitcher Bradley Stephens. It was a 7-1 contest by the end of Stephens’ day, heading into the sixth. Stephens threw 91 pitches in his five innings of work and allowed seven runs (five earned) and struck out one to accompany four walks. The one Minocqua run came after Parker Lindenberg had a one-out single in the fifth and was driven in by Jonathan Miller a few batters later.

Almost all other run damage from Hayward came in the bottom of the seventh, where the Hawks brought in three to make it a 10-run game. A baserunner or two here and there was the norm for the Wood Ducks, as they weren’t able to string together multiple hits.

Outside of the two hits from Miller and Lindenberg, John Sopiwnik led the team, going 2-for-4 at the plate. Shortstop Peter Aerts, Stephens and Callan Johnson each had a hit in the loss.

Brady Beyer and Griffin Beyer took to the bump to finish out the game, as Brady pitched one and one-third innings, with four runs given up (one earned), four walks and one strikeout. Griffin came in for what would be the final batter of the game, who singled and drove in a run to make it an 11-1 game to end it after seven.

The Wood Ducks tried to finish the weekend out strong with a trip to Marshfield on Sunday, but Minocqua dropped another close one by a 4-2 score. The team is back in league action at home over the Fourth of July weekend, with the Whittelsey Reds visiting Minocqua at 70W Park Complex this Sunday, July 5. The two teams will resume a rain-shortened game that was stopped in the top of the fourth inning from back in May at 12 p.m. The Wood Ducks had a 1-0 lead before that game was called. The two teams will then play a shortened seven inning game as their regular scheduled game.