Arena advanced to the final four of the home talent baseball night league playoffs with a 5-3 win over visiting Sun Prairie last night.
Bianchi going with the wicked curve and a head to the batter, nothing in two.
From the lineup, here comes the pitch, turbo popped up, this may do it.
Nate Jennings back from second base and he's got it!
And this one belongs to Alina.
Yankee retires in one, two, three in the seventh inning.
The Thursday night game saw the Redbirds jump out to a two-nothing lead in the top of the first inning.
Arena answered with two in the bottom of the inning and the Aces took a three-two lead in the second and would stay on top the rest of the way.
Zac Katie pitched six innings for the winners.
He struck out eight, walked two and yielded six hits.
Danny Yankee came on in relief and pitched a one, two, three, seventh inning to nail down the win.
Elijah Ault and Alan Sperly both had two hits.
The ace has totaled seven hits in the game against three different Sun Prairie pitchers.
Zac Katie scored two runs and Jimmy Jennings was one for two with a walk and an RBI.
Austin Adamowski was three for three with a double and three RBI for Sun Prairie.
Carson Holland suffered the pitching loss.
Following the 5-3 win, Arena will now take a long trip to Evansville next Thursday night for a home talent night league semifinal game.
Evansville was a winner over Minona McFarland 9-7, elsewhere Columbus edged Reedsburg 1-0 and Verona slipped by Ashton 3-2.
Alan Sperly joined me on the post game show last night and was pleased with the victory that his team was able to
accomplish.
It's the first time for us to be in the final four, so that's a exciting thing.
Played great tonight, a lot of fun.
When the sun suddenly jumped out to two run lead there in the first inning, were you a little worried at the
time or not?
Yeah, I was a little worried.
We never faced these guys before, so we didn't know what to expect from them and kind of expected them to hit the ball and they did just that, but we made the plays when I counted and held them to those two runs for a while and then one in the sixth inning.
Arena first baseman Alan Sperly after last night's win.
Also going on this weekend, the alumni legends versus the current Richland Center soccer players.
I asked head coach Tom Sadler, the Richland Center Hornets soccer team, how practice has gone during this first week of workouts.
Boy, Phil, things couldn't be better.
We've got a great group of athletes working hard this week for intensive training camp.
And right now we have over 30 participants again in the high school soccer program.
My goodness.
So you should have a strong varsity and junior varsity or varsity
reserve this
year,
right?
That's correct.
Yep.
We'll have enough to play JV games and varsity games with plenty of players to substitute in.
Do you have a lot of
experience back from last year, coach?
We do.
We have Harrison Carpenter returning as a senior.
We also have Josh Nelson returning as the senior, Landon Williams and Sean Adams.
I know your inaugural game is against the legends on Saturday and do you want to talk any smack about the legends or anything today?
Oh absolutely I would like to.
I am a legend myself, and so all of the alumni players for the program are invited to join us at 11 AM at the stadium on Saturday.
That'll be our annual alumni game.
And as far as talking smack, Phil, I think I'm going to say that.
It's important, though, for your guys to get out and get a little taste of competition before it actually starts for real on the schedule, though, isn't it?
That's correct.
We will start our season Tuesday, August 25th against La Crosse Aquinas down in La Crosse.
That's a team that we beat last year in the state tournament, so we are excited to play them.
Before we do,
Playing against the alumni is a great occasion and always a well-attended game and we invite anybody from the soccer community to come join in the festivities.
Right and you could take all the able-bodied legends that you could, right, to give you a little bit of a rest
once in a while?
Absolutely.
The legends are usually good for five to ten minutes before the conditioning starts to become a factor.
And so the more bodies there to help coach Rick Payasaki win would be good.
We're looking forward to a good battle.
And with 30 players ourselves, we'll have plenty of substitutes to keep things moving.
Once again, fans are welcome to come out in support and the legends are welcome to come out and play against the current Richland Center soccer varsity.
That's tomorrow starting at 11 here in Richland Center at Avidus Ripfield.
Last night in high school football, eight player action get underway.
Highland was a winner over Wisconsin Heights, 22-20.
Belmont, 48.
Kick-a-boo-le-farge, nothing.
North Crawford, 38-6 against DeSoto.
In 11 player football, Portage a winner against Wisconsin Dells.
on to tonight's schedule.
A big one in the area and it's Riverdale playing host to Ithaca Weston this evening.
I spoke with Ithaca Weston coach Kyle Kelly about facing Riverdale.
Yeah, that's always fun.
Like I said, it's a rivalry, but in a good way.
Like it's good to have those kind of games, but definitely probably a little more fire from both sides.
It's good to start the season off with a good game like that.
their best players of Devin Dennis is a phenomenal athlete.
So containing him is going to be the big goal.
It's not going to be easy to do because like I said, he's very, very athletic.
I asked Kyle Kelly about strengths of this year's Bulldog team.
So far, we've got a lot of youth, but the kids seem very eager and willing to learn and put forth their best effort.
We have a couple of solid backs back from last year, so that'll be big.
Jeff Johnson, head coach of Riverdale, talked about season goals for the Chieftains.
We have less room for error, less room for mistakes.
We have to be sound in everything we do.
If we control the line scrimmage that every coach will say and don't turn the ball over, I think we'll be in every single game.
Well, you take on Ithaca Weston this year and the first game and really it's the first game.
This is an important game for both teams, I think, isn't it?
Yeah, you know, it's got a really good history.
When I first came here, we played against Dan Rice.
When he was coaching and man, you knew when he was coaching it was going to be a grind It's good.
They had a really good streak of some really good teams.
So the history With their team in general and then the history between our if you want to call it a rivalry non-conference rivalry
That's going to be a really good game.
The game tonight on W R C E F M 107.7.
That's opposite Packer football on W R C O this evening.
The Russell Center Hornets will be on the road to Viroqua this evening.
I asked coach Andrew Troxel about the black box.
Overall, I think the program's got about 25 kids total in it.
You know, and so we've been there before.
We know how hard that is, right?
Do you just quality looking practice, but.
I mean, they're going to put a product on the field that they think that they're going to have success with.
And so I would look for a lot of fullback belly, you know, and then off of that, you're going to have an option look, some sweeps on the outside, right?
And they're going to try to lull you to sleep and then throw the long ball, you know, and anytime a team has a home opener, they're going to be jazzed and they're going to be ready to go and put on a show for their home crowd.
So we know that it's not going to be a cakewalk.
We know we're going to have to come in and we're going to have to stay disciplined, right, and run our schemes.
and then do what we need to do.
Kickoff time seven o'clock tonight in Varroqua.
Evansville is at River Valley.
This evening I talked to Coach Tyler McClain of the Blackhawks about visiting Evansville.
They're a very good squad as they were last year.
I do know they lost a couple guys up front but they got some athletes on the outside.
They got their QB attorney who's a good athlete as well.
Again, they'll be a really good competition for us and I think a really good measuring stick for us as we kind of progress throughout the season.
What do you think the strengths of the team will be this year?
What do you anticipate?
I do think there is a little bit of unknown with our guys right now, and I think that's exciting.
I do believe in our front right now, our offensive line.
We've been really trying to simplify and make things a little bit more consistent for our guys up front.
Each and every day I've seen improvement from them, so I'm excited to see that group kind of develop throughout the year.
Do you name captains at this point in the season?
Coach Tyler McClain of River Valley is team hosting Evansville.
Hillsborough is at Boscobel.
Fenimore at Iowa Grant.
Lancaster visits Belleville.
Prairie Dushina de Cuenas, Platteville at Mauston, Dodgeville at Mineral Point, Cached in Visits, Wozika, Steuben, Seneca, Westby at Royal, Cuba City at Potosi, River Ridge Host Benton Co-Op School, Darlington with a game at St.
Mary Springs, Blackhawk Warren at Southwestern East Abuke, Pecatonica Argyle at Deerfield, Edgerton visits Broadhead, Judah,
Grafton at Mount Horro Barneveld, Reedsburg at New Berlin West, Sock Prairie at Barrow Boo, Baldwin Woodville Atoma, and Black River Falls at Sparta.
This evening, our pregame time begins at 6.40 on WRCE, leading toward game time.