Oconto Falls' baseball season ended by New London

The Oconto Falls High School baseball team started strong but wasn’t able to keep things going in a Division 2 regional postseason game against New London on June 10 at Cottrill Field at Hatten Memorial Stadium in New London.

The sixth-seeded Panthers were topped 4-1 by the third-seeded Bulldogs.

Oconto Falls got off to a promising start, with Jake Sager singling to open the first inning. Senior Tucker Bouche followed with a triple to score Sager.

Bouche was eventually stranded on third base to end the inning, and the Panthers were limited to just two hits the rest of the contest.

After Bouche’s triple, the next batter struck out for the game’s first out. Bouche didn’t try to score on a groundout from Graeson Pankratz and another strikeout followed to end the frame.

“I know for me, I probably could have scored on Graeson’s hit,” said Bouche.

“It kinda puts you behind when you make mistakes like that in a playoff game. Runs are important obviously, and getting ahead early 2-0 would be awesome, so that was kind of a downfall for us.”

Bouche also was Oconto Falls’ starting pitcher in the contest, and he turned in a valiant effort.

In the first inning he ended up stranding the bases loaded to help the Panthers keep the lead. Bouche got four outs in the inning, with one of the three batters he struck out reaching on a dropped third strike.

After Oconto Falls went down in order in the top of the second, Bouche struck out two more in the bottom of the second. The Panthers went down 1-2-3 in the third also before New London grabbed the lead in the bottom half.

The second batter of the inning singled off Bouche before moving to second on an error. The next batter lined a ball in between the Panthers’ center and left fielders, and with the ball rolling toward the wall in center — which measured 470 feet — the batter was able to keep running and eventually had a two-run inside-the-park home run.

Bouche was able to settle back into a groove, but Oconto Falls’ offense wasn’t able to string together any hits or score any runs to support him.

After the first inning ended, the next Oconto Falls batter to reach base was Isaac Raddatz with a two-out single in the fifth. A flyout ended the chance for a rally.

New London then tacked on two insurance runs in the bottom of the frame. Both runs were unearned, as another dropped third strike led to the first run and a dropped popup allowed the second tally of the inning.

In the sixth, Braden VanderMoss singled for Oconto Falls’ fourth hit in the contest, but a groundball double play the next batter ended the frame. Oconto Falls went down in order in the seventh, the fourth time the team did that in the game.

“We jumped on the fastball early and then he (New London pitcher Connor Brinkman) realized that we were pretty good against fastballs so he threw a lot of off-speed pitches, which really hurt us,” said Sager.

Oconto Falls ended up striking out eight times against Brinkman over his seven innings.

Bouche pitched all six innings for the Panthers, striking out 10 batters while allowing just four hits and two walks.

“They’re a special team,” said Bouche when asked about his final high school season. “Lot of special guys on there, I’m going to miss them a lot.”

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