Donahue tosses five-hit shutout, Chaps rip 16 hits in win

By Paul Lecker

Sports Reporter

MARSHFIELD — The Marshfield Chaparrals amateur baseball team seemingly took out some recent frustrations on a clearly overwhelmed Plover team as they hammered the visiting Pterodactyls 14-0 Wednesday night at Jack Hackman Field.

In their previous game, the Chaparrals were stuck in neutral offensively, getting just three hits and not scoring at all in a 2-0 loss on June 4 in Westboro.

That was not the case Wednesday.

Bobby Pilz had a two-run single to score Lucius Messerschmidt and Cale Cuddie with the game’s first runs in the second inning for the Chaparrals, who are now 3-2 this season.

That was just the beginning.

Nate MacDonald’s triple scored Pilz, Justin Rayburn beat out an infield hit that scored MacDonald before Riley Erickson walked, Sam Schwanebeck singled home Rayburn, Erickson later scored on a wild pitch, and Luke Wirtz drove in Schwaneback with a single to make it 7-0. All the runs scored with two outs.

“I thought we took much better at-bats tonight,” Chaparrals player/manager Rayburn said. “Our hitting is going to come around, and tonight we took a step forward offensively.”

With the damage done, the Chaps coasted from there, getting three more runs in the third inning on another wild pitch, an error, and a bases loaded walk by Schwanebeck.

Marshfield tacked on four more runs in the fourth including. Curtis Engelbrecht, who came on as a late-inning replacement for Schwanebeck, had an RBI single.

With all the offensive fireworks, starting pitcher Jack Donahue threw zeroes at the Pterodactyls, completing a seven-inning shutout victory with six strikeouts and no walks while scattering five hits.

“Jack (Donahue) really hit his spots tonight,” concluded Rayburn. “He pitched a heck of a game for us.”

The Chaparrals will head right back to action Thursday night as they travel to Eau Claire’s Carson Park to take on the Eau Claire Cavaliers at 7:30 p.m.

(Hub City Times Sports Reporter Paul Lecker is also the publisher of MarshfieldAreaSports.com.)

Chaparrals 14, Pterodactyls 0

Plover 000 000 0 – 0 5 4

Marshfield 073 400 x – 14 16 1

WP: Jack Donahue. LP: Greg Trudell.

SO: Trudell (1 2/3 inn.) 1, Jake Schwark (1 2/3 inn.) 0, Steve Pettit (1 2/3 inn.) 0, Kevin Jastromski (1 inn.) 0; Donahue (7 inn.) 6. BB: Trudell 1, Schwark 3, Pettit 1, Jastromski 0; Donahue 0.

Top hitters: P, Bill Held 2×3. M, Nate MacDonald 3×4, 3B; Justin Rayburn 2×3, 2 RBIs 3 runs; Riley Erickson 2×3, 2B; Sam Schwanebeck 2×3, 3 RBIs; Lucious Messerschmidt 2×4; Bobby Pilz 2×3, 2 runs, 2 RBIs.

Records: Plover not reported; Marshfield 3-2.