Baseball: Bonduel cannot hold early lead in season-ending loss

The Bonduel High School baseball team saw its season come to an end in a 5-3 Division 3 regional title loss to Peshtigo on Wednesday afternoon. The Bulldogs used a three-run fifth inning to pull ahead before fending off the Bears seventh inning rally.

Peshtigo had its first four runners reach base in the fifth before a two-run single put the hosts ahead for good. The Bulldogs added another run in the sixth to go up 5-3.

Needing to score at least twice in the seventh to extend their season, the Bears put together a two-out rally. Junior Cole Letter walked and senior Parker Bohm singled up the middle to bring up Noah Beilfuss. The junior put a good swing on a two-strike pitch, but the ball bounced right to the third baseman, who stepped on third base to end the game.

It was a game of tough breaks for Bonduel, which barrelled up several balls but always seemed to hit them right at Peshtigo defenders.

“Sometimes when we face a better pitcher on the mound, we have some trouble not so much putting the ball in play but hitting it where they are not,” said Bonduel coach Donnie Gruenewald. “We hit the ball well at the start of the game. But when we did square a ball up (later in the game), we seemed to hit it right at somebody.”

“I think we had a lot of good opportunities but we hit some hard outs right at people,” said senior Aaron Margelofsky. “We just couldn’t find the holes (in the defense) that we did early on. I think we had good at-bats, but ultimately it didn’t amount to anything.”

Much like it did to Coleman a night earlier, Bonduel jumped out to an early lead over Peshtigo.

Parker Bohm singled with one out before Beilfuss walked. Senior Riddik Bohm then lifted a deep flyball to right-center that kept carrying but ended in a long single to load the bases.

After Peshtigo made a pitching change, Bonduel junior Dylan Burch drew a walk to allow Parker Bohm to score. Sophomore Garrett Engel then came through with a RBI sacrifice fly to score Beilfuss, but Peshtigo was able to get the third out on the play to avoid any further damage.

Senior Joey Wagester earned the start on the hill for the Bears and kept the Bulldogs off balance in the early innings.

Wagester worked a 1-2-3 first inning before working around a walk and single in the second. Peshtigo got on the scoreboard in the third after a hit batsman and a wind-aided triple with two outs.

The Bulldogs looked to be on their way to a big fourth inning, but Wagester induced an inning-ending double play to energize the team and Bonduel faithful.

Wagester ran into trouble in the fifth after hitting a batter and allowing a walk. Parker Bohm came on to try and halt the momentum, but a bunt single loaded the bases.

A walk forced in a run to decrease Bonduel’s lead to one before the two-RBI single with two outs gave the hosts their first lead.

“It was kind of both — my arm was getting a little sore and tired but they were really starting to hit the ball good and I have to give them credit for that,” Wagester said.

Following the game, the Bonduel coaching staff insisted that the players keep their heads up and should have no regrets because they left it all on the field and played the right way.

“I think we got a lot closer as a team, we were like a family,” Parker Bohm said. “We struggled with a lot of adversity throughout the year but we overcame that and had a successful season in the end.”

“I think we’ve always kind of struggled with handling adversity and this year, we stepped it up and realized that nobody was going to feel sorry for us,” Margelofsky said. “We knew we had to go out and make things happen. Just over the last two or three weeks of the season, we had a couple big comeback wins and that was huge for us and set us up for this little (playoff) run we had here.”

“The bond, we were like brothers, like cousins,” Wagester said. “It was a magical season.”

Bonduel finished the year with a 16-7 record.