Top-ranked Aquinas edges Norse for regional championship

Whitehall stuck with the top-ranked baseball team in all of Division Three last Wednesday, but Aquinas held on for a 3-0 win and a regional title to end the Norse’s season.

The Norse finish 2023 with a 15-7 record.

“We had pretty high expectations coming in returning so many guys from last year,” Whitehall coach Alex Eid said of the season. “We had some guys show us things we didn’t necessarily know we were gonna get out of them, but the guys we have are just an outstanding group of guys and they just always battled.”

Whitehall starting pitcher Brayden Lisowski held Aquinas (20-3 this season) at bay for much of the game — Lisowski tossed six innings, limiting the host Blugolds to five hits while striking out seven batters.

Aquinas has one of the most powerful offenses in the state, so the Norse knew they would need to play a clean game on defense, Eid said.

An error in the bottom of the fourth inning allowed Aquinas to take a 1-0 lead before the Blugolds added two insurance runs in the sixth inning.

“We just had a super outing by our starting pitcher, Brayden, and our defense did pretty well to make the plays they had to,” Eid said. “I think him and the catcher just did a really good job calling the game and keeping guys off balance.”

Lisowski was not alone in his strong performance from the mound. 

Aquinas pitcher Tanner Peterson restricted Whitehall to three hits in seven innings of work and was also mixing pitches to keep the visitors from finding a rhythm on offense.

Whitehall only got runners into scoring position twice on Wednesday, and the late runs for Aquinas made a comeback hard to complete.

“That was kind of daunting there at the end,” Eid said. “One to nothing makes it a little easier to hit in the bottom of the seventh versus 3-0. You’re then trying to get three runs in one swing, which isn’t possible.”

Whitehall was getting the bat on the ball, but Aquinas repeatedly made plays to get outs and hold the Norse off the base paths.

Lisowski joined teammates Preston Schroeder and Bryce Schorbahn with hits on offense, while Aquinas saw two different players go two-for-three in Calvin and Nolan Hardgrove.

Whitehall 7 Pardeeville 0

Devon McCune was in control on the mound, holding the Bulldogs to just three hits, while allowing one walk and striking out eight in the shutout win.

The Norse took an early lead as Preston Schroeder led off with a single and scored a single by McCune in the bottom of the first.

Two more runs scored in the third when Brock Sluga doubled McCune and Schorbahn home. Schroeder tripled with one out in the fourth, scoring Seth Lambeck from first, then scored himself on a hit by McCune to make the score 5-0.

Whitehall added two more in the fifth when Sluga singled and Mason Pientok doubled with one out. After a groundout, Lambeck hit into an error, bringing both runners home.

Pardeeville barely threatened in the game. They got two runners on in the first, thanks to a dropped third strike and a walk, but a flyout ended the threat. The flyout was the start of a stretch in which McCune retired 15 of 16 batters he faced, with one-two-three innings in the fourth, fifth and sixth. 

The Bulldogs got two on in the seventh, but McCune got a groundout and a fly out to end the game. 

Sluga went three-for-three in the game while Schroeder and McCune both had two hits.