LACROSSE, Wis (WSAU-Woodchucks) The Wisconsin Woodchucks (11-7, 28-24) made too many mistakes Thursday night and fell to the La Crosse Loggers (12-7, 29-24) 5-4 tonight in La Crosse. The Woodchucks Balked in a go-ahead run, walked in the winning run in the 8th, exactly like Wednesday night, and had the tying run 90-feet away in the 9th before losing. The loss pushed the Woodchucks behind the Loggers in the division.
Andrew Klausmeier (2-2) started for the Woodchucks and pitched very well, bringing a shutout to the 5th inning. The Woodchucks finally scored against Loggers’ starter Stayton Thomas (1-3) when Pat Terry knocked a basehit to center that socred Robbie de la Cruz, but Kevin Pillar was thrown out trying to score from second on the play, and the Woodchucks led only 1-0.
The Loggers dipped and blooped their way to 5 hits in the bottom half of the inning and scored 4 time against Klausmeier. The inning included an infield popup going for a basehit, a run-scoring balk, a bunt hit, and a roller hit-and-run hit and the Loggers led 4-1.
The Woodchucks cut the lead to 1 in the 6th when Brock Stassi and Jamie Bruno hit solo home runs to make the game 4-3. It was each hitter’s 5th of the season, and the duo leads the team. Stassi came up big again in the 7th. Pillar had led the inning off with a double but was still on second with 2 outs before Stassi scored him with a bouncing basehit up the middle to tie the game at 4-4.
Cory Hall (2-2) got into trouble in the 8th inning when the Loggers put two on base with no outs. The Woodchucks elected to intentionally walk the bases loaded with no outs when Hall struck out a hitter for the first out. Then, just like Wednesday night, the Woodchucks surrendered a walk with the bases loaded and the Loggers led 5-4. Hall escaped the inning without further damage, but the Loggers took their lead to the 9th.
The Woodchucks, helped by a Mike Marjama error, had the tying run on third base with two outs when Brock Stassi returned to the plate, but the ‘Chucks luck ran out as Stassi bounced out to first to end the game.
