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Kulig, a senior on Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau’s baseball team, allowed just two hits and struck out nine over four shutout innings Thursday before WIAA rules, which limit the number of innings a pitcher can throw in a week, forced him from the mound.
Kulig moved to shortstop, and Luke Neitzel closed the door for the Redmen in their 4-1 win over Cochrane-Fountain City.
“There should be rules enforced, because some kids are pitching a lot,” Kulig said. “But I have too much faith in my team to think about the rules. I knew we were going to win.”
Kulig, a four-year starter, was one of the main reasons.
Using a fastball, a cutter and a big-breaking curveball, Kulig struck out the side in the second inning, and, after surrendering a lead-off single, he struck out three consecutive Pirates to end the third. He caught four of his strikeout victims looking.
“I remember their coach, (Bill Wilhelmi), saying, ‘The next guy who gets out looking is out of the game,’” Kulig said. “And I go, ‘He’s probably not going to have a team left when I’m done.’”
C-FC pitcher Sam White, while not as spectacular as Kulig, kept his team in the game.
The freshman struck out four, scattered six hits, allowed four runs — three earned — and held G-E-T to a 2-for-13 mark with runners in scoring position over a complete-game effort that Wilhelmi called the “outing of the year.”
G-E-T broke the game open with two runs in the sixth — an inning in which White threw just seven pitches.
White hit Cory Abel in the helmet with his first pitch, and Casey Symitczek laid down a sacrifice bunt on the second.
Luke Neitzel took a strike before reaching on an error to load the bases, and Travis Nelson popped out to second on the first pitch he saw.
Craig Lebakken ripped his second offering to right field to score Abel, and an error on the throw allowed Neitzel to score. White then picked off Lebakken to end the inning.
Abel and Lebakken each had two hits and an RBI for G-E-T (9-4, 6-3), which won its fourth consecutive game.
Tristan Marklowitz went 2-for-3, and Karl Hoff had a double to lead the Pirates (3-9, 3-6), who loaded the bases with one out in the seventh but couldn’t produce.
