Posted: June 23, 2009 |(0) Comments

Is this what a rebuilding season is supposed to look like? The Menomonee Falls baseball team lost the top of its pitching staff and the heart of its offense to graduation and despite all that, started this week 16-2, including a smashing 12-0 in non-conference play after routing both Arrowhead (12-2) and Cudahy (13-1) in the South Milwaukee Wood Bat Tournament on Saturday.

And as comfortable as they are playing the south side, they are also relaxed and steady playing under the big lights, as they were in beating New Berlin Eisenhower (7-1) and Muskego (7-3) in a pair of games played at Miller Park on June 17 and 18, respectively.

The Muskego game also served as the championship game for the Germantown Invitational, which was rain-shortened late last month.

Pitchers holding up

And the Pat Hansen-coached Indians are doing this all despite running out three reasonably inexperienced lefthanders (Ben Burns, Adam Rubatt and Alex Sutherland) at the top of their pitching order and the fact that they still have two suspended games left to complete (one against Franklin, was completed Monday and the second, against GMC favorite Oak Creek, is scheduled for 1 p.m. on July 14).

Hansen thinks the best is yet to come.

"I think Saturday (the South Milwaukee Tournament) was the best day of baseball we've had all year," he said, "both the bats and the pitching came around. I'm not surprised by our level of talent. We knew there were good kids coming up from the JV, but we didn't know how quickly they would adapt to the jump to varsity."

"The intensity level is much higher going from JV to varsity than it is freshmen to JV."

Juniors lead the charge

Not that junior-dominated Falls has skipped a beat.

In the Wood Bat tourney, the Indians scored in six of seven innings against Arrowhead as Donny Matovich (two runs) and Burns (three runs) had three hits apiece and Cole Myhra and Drew Menne had two RBI apiece.

Nick Held got the win, throwing six-plus innings with three strikeouts and three walks.

Then against Cudahy, they pounded out eight runs in the third and coasted to a five-inning win as Sutherland, Matt Poeske, Ryan Romens and Carter Ypma, all had two hits apiece.

Poeske, the Indians regular catcher, took a turn on the hill and struck out seven, scattering four hits. Hansen was pleased with the work of sophomore junior varsity catcher Corey Volden, who filled in for Poeske.

Falls will have a pivotal home-and-away meeting with defending state champion and GMC rival Marquette. The Indians will host the Hilltoppers today and then will visit them down at MATC Park on the south side on Friday. Both games are at 5:30 p.m. Due to construction on College Avenue, spectators will have to take a different route to get to the MATC Park.

 

- Steven L. Tietz