Big innings loom large in Pulaski’s loss to Denmark

If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best, and Denmark has been the best for the past three seasons. Despite an overall great effort from the Pulaski Legion team, it was a pair of three-run innings that did them in as Denmark came to town and picked up the 7-1 win July 11.

Any time you face a great team, you know you’re going to be in for a challenge. Denmark, however, is not only the three-time WIAA state champions, but they have been to state in each of the last two Legion seasons with their sights set on a third. This is the level that every team wants to get to, and Pulaski is building toward that level.

“I felt we played much better today than what we have shown the past few games,” head coach Jack Anderson said. “Denmark is a great team, and there is a reason as to why they have had so much success the past few years. Today, all three of our kids threw the ball well, and they did enough to keep us in the game.”

Zach Brodhagen got the start for Pulaski, and he battled into the fourth inning. Brodhagen gave Pulaski 3 2/3 innings of work, allowing four runs on five hits. He walked one and struck out four as he did his best to keep things close. His biggest problem was facing an extremely talented and dangerous Denmark squad anchored by a strong pitching staff. Josh Pittner took the ball for the Vikings and went the distance allowing one run on four hits. He walked four and struck out eight to earn the win.

As tough as things were for Pulaski most of the night, they were the ones who managed to strike first, scoring in their first at-bat to grab the lead. Caden Rybicki started things with a one-out walk and advanced to third on the Bryce Wotruba double. Two batters later, it was CJ Clauss coming through with a clutch RBI single as Pulaski was in front 1-0.

“We talked about needing to be more aggressive, and we did a much better job getting our bats going early on,” Clauss said. “However, we couldn’t put many runs across and couldn’t string together many hits after the first. We had a chance to pull closer later, but for whatever reason, we can’t seem to come through with the clutch hits we need.”

Once the second inning rolled around, the Denmark offense started to kick it into gear, and it was all Vikings after that as they ended the game with seven unanswered runs. Three of those seven runs came off Brodhagen in the second with Pittner helping himself with a game tying RBI double. Throw in an Eric Laforest groundout and the Eli Kapinos double, and the Vikings opened up a 3-1 lead and never looked back.

Things only got worse for Pulaski in the fourth inning with Pittner helping himself for the second straight inning as his RBI double extended the Denmark lead to 4-1. Credit the Pulaski pitching staff after that as they battled hard to keep things close with Hunter Money tossing a scoreless 1 1/3 inning before handing things off to Brett Schott.

Like his counterpart, Schott pitched a scoreless inning, but that came after more damage was done. Holding a 4-1 lead into the sixth, the Denmark offense came back to life in the sixth as they made life difficult for Schott on the mound. A leadoff walk certainly didn’t help things; nor did a pair of singles including one from Ethan Ovsak to open a 5-1 lead. That set the stage for Lucas Miller who singled home the game’s sixth run for the Vikings before coming home to score on the Reece Johnson single to push the lead to 7-1.

Looking to battle back in the later innings, Pulaski had a chance to make things interesting late as they tried to break through in the seventh. A one-out walk from Jake Fredrickson put a runner on base before the two out single from Rybicki set the offense up in a good spot. Unfortunately, Pulaski couldn’t do anything with it as Pittner recovered to induce the game-ending ground out and lifted the Vikings to a 7-1 win.

Despite the loss, this was a positive showing from Pulaski, and one Anderson hopes will carry over into regional action.

“This was one of our more complete games this season, even if the scoreboard doesn’t show it,” he said. “Take away those two big innings, and we were right there until the end. Our pitching was good enough to win this game, and we have shown steady improvement in that area over the last few weeks. Now it is time for the offense to do the same as we get set for regionals.”

Pulaski had five hits in the loss with Rybicki leading the way with two. Wotruba added two hits with Clauss picking up the lone RBI.