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By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
MARSHFIELD – The Marshfield baseball team didn’t play its best defensive game of the season, but some clutch pitching from Colton Zahradka and Jack Donahue was enough to give the Tigers a 6-5 win over Rice Lake in a WIAA Division 1 regional semifinal Tuesday at Jack Hackman Field.
The sixth-seeded Tigers (14-12) move on to a regional final Thursday at No. 3 seed River Falls (13-4), with the winner moving on to next Tuesday’s sectional tournament at Chippewa Falls.
Zahradka allowed just three hits in six innings, dodging five fielding errors by the Tigers and left with a 6-3 lead. After retiring the first two hitters, reliever Dylan Budtke ran into trouble, giving up four straight hits and two runs.
With two runners on, Jack Donahue entered and struck out the Rice Lake batter on three pitches to earn the save the preserve the victory.
“We made a few uncharacteristic errors, but they were a team that came in and played loose, they played hard, they hit the ball and put pressure on us defensively,” Marshfield coach Mark Zee said. “Hopefully, we’ll pick it back up on defense.”
A dropped fly ball led to a run for Rice Lake in the top of the third inning, but the Tigers responded with two runs in the bottom of the inning.
Cameron Swanson singled and scored on an error, and Caleb Alexander delivered a sacrifice fly to plate Daulton Varsho to give the Tigers the lead.
Rice Lake tied it with a run in the fourth and the score remained 2-2 until the Tigers scored three times in the fifth.
Varsho tripled and scored when Trevor Schwecke reached on an error. Alexander had another sac fly and Sam Klein had an RBI single to make it 5-2.
Schwecke singled to score pinch runner Braden Bohman with Marshfield’s sixth run.
Turner Swanson doubled, Hunter Ashlin tripled and Parker Buckley singled to plate Rice Lake’s two runs in the top of the seventh before Donahue ended it with the big strikeout. Donahue will start Thursday’s game at River Falls.
“I was proud of guys,” Zee said. “We talked about the importance of getting some ‘tack on’ runs. Up 5-3, it was important to get that one more run. It was huge. We had a freshman (Bohman) steal second and score a run.
“He (Donahue) is our horse. We had to throw him one inning, we didn’t want to but we had to, and now we have him able to go six and we’ll have to find someone to finish up for us.”
Tigers 6, Warriors 5
Rice Lake 001 101 2 – 5 7 3
Marshfield 002 031 x – 6 10 5
WP: Colton Zahradka. LP: Alex Kempf. SV: Jack Donahue.
SO: Kempf 2; Zahradka 3, Dylan Budtke 0, Donahue 1. BB: Kempf 1; Zahradka 4, Budtke 0, Donahue 0.
Top hitters: RL, Turner Swanson 2B, 3 runs; Hunter Ashlin 2×4, 3B, RBI; Parker Buckley 2×4, RBI; Austin Piecuch 2×4. M, Daulton Varsho 3B, 2 runs, RBI; Trevor Schwecke 2×4, 2 RBIs; Caleb Alexander 2×2, 2 RBIs; C. Zahradka 2×3.
Records: Rice Lake 3-15; Marshfield 14-12.