Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com
Published - Monday, June 30, 2008
After split, LeJetz coach hopes lessons are learned
All weekend the state-ranked talent at the Winona Legion/Winona State University Legion Baseball Classic beat up on each other at WSU’s Loughrey Field.
No. 6 Rochester managed to get its wins out of the way early, clinching the tournament title Saturday night by beating the Winona LeJetz 5-1. But three of the five teams left Winona Sunday with a parity-induced on 2-2 tournament record.
Then there was the LeJetz.
The host team beat Beaver Dam 4-3 in nine innings Sunday then lost the tournament finale 2-1 to La Crosse.
Matt Wolfe came through with a two-out, walk-off hit to drive in Devon Grossell in the bottom of the ninth to lift Winona past Beaver Dam.
Winona’s Arran Davis was the hard-luck loser against Wisconsin Class AAA No. 8 ranked La Crosse despite a complete-game, six-hitter. A pair of hiccups for Davis — La Crosse’s Luke Warren and J.J. Blaschke hit solo home runs in the sixth and seventh innings, respectively — were the difference in a pitchers’ duel.
“We’ve been inconsistent so far scoring runs,” LeJetz coach Gary Hoeppner said. “Our defense has been, for the most part, pretty good, and the pitching hasn’t been too bad. Right now it’s just the inability to get the timely hits.”
The LeJetz finished at the bottom of the tournament with a 1-3 record, but left behind plenty to read between the lines.
The only team to beat Rochester — Mahtomedi — needed 10 innings to put away Winona 4-2 on Friday. The 14 runs allowed in four games by the LeJetz were second only to Rochester’s seven. And the Patriots opened the tournament with back-to-back, no-hit wins.
It was the LeJetz who broke up the Patriots no-hit streak at 121/3 innings before losing 5-1.
To recap for the LeJetz: a 10-inning loss, a one-run loss and one convincing loss to the red-hot tournament champions. And the LeJetz lone win came against unanimous Wisconsin Class AAA No. 1 ranked Beaver Dam.
“We faced a lot of good pitching,” Grossell said. “We had kids throwing junk, we had kids throwing heat. Just a variety of pitching. Hopefully, it helps us down the road.”
Of course its easy to overlook the bottom line with rose-filtered lenses. The LeJetz scored just eight runs in four games — the next lowest was La Crosse at 15. The Mahtomedi loss was aided by five Winona errors.
And then there was this: Winona batted .240, 30-for-125, for the tournament.
“We can hang with good teams, we just have to keep battling,” Wolfe said. “We can compete with these teams. We’ve been hitting the ball hard, but just hitting it right at them. Eventually they’re going to fall, then we’ll get on a roll.”
Last year’s Winona tournament marked a major turning point in the LeJetz’s run to the District championship game and a near-state tournament berth. The LeJetz went 3-1 and finished runners-up before making a late-season surge.
“It would’ve been nice to win more then one game, but overall we played some pretty good baseball against some good competition,” Hoeppner said. “As long as we learn from this weekend — we were in every game we played — I can live with that.”
Grossell went 3-for-3 with a double against Beaver Dam and finished the day 5-for-7 with two doubles. Wolfe went 2-for-4 against Beaver Dam and David Miller allowed three runs (two earned) in seven innings. Adam Lueck picked up the win in relief.
Tom Kriedermacher went 2-for-2 against La Crosse. Davis gave up six hits, two runs, walked two and had one strikeout in seven innings.
All stories copyright 2000 - 2006 Winona Daily News and other attributed sources.