Wednesday, October 9, 2024

W-F back on top

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Indians clinch another softball title

By Greg Seubert


Last year, the Weyauwega-Fremont softball team missed out on a Central Wisconsin 8 Conference championship by falling to Pacelli in the teams’ final CWC-8 game.

That’s not the case this year, as the Indians have clinched this year’s title with one CWC-8 game still on the schedule.

W-F scored all of its runs in the first three innings May 11 and went on to hand Wittenberg-Birnamwood a 13-2 loss May 11 in Weyauwega.

The Indians scored five times in the first and added two runs in the second before the Chargers scored twice in the third. W-F then put the game away with a six-run third and held the Chargers scoreless the rest of the way to get the five-inning victory.

While the Indians have relied on the pitching of Cadyn Ehrenberg and Kiley Akey this season, Taylor Folk got the call against W-B. She went the distance and scattered five hits while striking out four batters.

Taylor Flease led the Indians’ offense with five RBIs and two of the team’s 16 hits. Kati Kettleson led the team with three hits, while Alexa Greening, Akey and Ehrenberg added two each. Akey also drove in three runs.

The Indians improved to 12-1 in conference play and 15-7 overall and wrapped up CWC-8 play May 15 at Bonduel.

The championship is the Indians’ third in the last five years under coach Todd Breuer.

“We have a great group of kids here,” he said. “Obviously, it starts with our pitching. I thought our defense played well this year for us. They kind of exceeded my expectations. We didn’t score a lot of runs, but we had timely hits. I think that was the key this year: great pitching, solid defense and timely hits.”

The Indians compete in a conference that fielded a number of solid teams this year, including Shiocton, Pacelli, Bonduel and Iola-Scandinavia.

“Yes, we had a lot of core girls back that played last year, but we lost a lot,” Breuer said. “The girls stepped in, filled their spots, competed again and got the job done. We could have been sitting third in the conference right now.”

Wrapping up a conference championship should help Breuer at the seeding meeting for the upcoming WIAA state tournament.

“Going in with at least seven losses, that’s going to be tough asking for the one or two seed,” he said. “Being conference champs, I think our conference has a lot of respect around the state. That’s going to help us.”

The Indians’ wins include a 1-0 win April 28 on Pacelli’s home field and a 4-3 win over the Cardinals in the CWC-8 opener.

“We gave up two runs in the sixth or seventh inning,” Breuer said of the first meeting with Pacelli. “We were down going into the bottom of the eighth, came back and scored three to win by one. That was early on and that kind of set the tone. We lose that one and we would probably not be sitting here today talking about a conference title.

“I had a player just the other day in practice say, ‘I’m glad we can take care of conference this week,” he said. “We don’t have to worry about that anymore and we can be thinking about the next thing. That’s the most important thing right now: wrapping it up a week early and moving forward.”

Besides the rematch with Bonduel, the Indians also headed to Rosendale May 16 for a nonconference matchup with Laconia, the defending WIAA Division 3 state champion. The Spartans have eliminated the Indians from the state tournament the last two seasons in the sectional round.

W-F is also scheduled to wrap up the regular season at 5 p.m. Friday, May 19, at Mosinee.

“Our AD did a great job with our schedule,” Breuer said. “It’s only going to help us for that playoff run.”

Weyauwega-Fremont softball