Thunder Takes 2nd in Burlington Tournament !!

              The West Bend Thunder headed to Burlington Saturday with a 11-0 record and looking to win their 2nd tournament of the year and keep their perfect record intact. They started out with two pool play games on Saturday vs. St. Charles IL and Janesville. In the first game vs. St. Charles the Thunder had to play catch up. They fell behind 5-1 after one and 6-1 after 3 innings. Then the bats would wake up and the Thunder started to come back. A two run 4th and six run 5th brought the Thunder all the way back and they would hang on for a 10-7 victory. Caden Gish led the Thunder at the plate with a 3-3 game with two runs scored. In the 2nd pool play game the Thunder would face Janesville and once again they would have to play catch up. Janesville scored two in the 1st and would lead 2-0 after two complete. The Thunder would tie things up in the 3rd with two runs and it was all tied up a 2-2 heading to the 4th. In the top of the fourth Janesville would score 3 runs all after the first two batters made out. Then the rains and lighting would come and delay the game for about 45 minutes with Janesville up 5-2 heading into the bottom of the 4th. After the delay the Thunder would have one at bat to try to come back because of the time limit rule. Well the Thunder weren't ready to give up and would score 6 times in the bottom of the fourth, batting around in the order. Cal Karnitz and Jake Lavanway both had huge two RBI base hits in the inning to give the Thunder an 8-5 lead but with one minute left on the time limit the Thunder had to go out and hold Janesville in the top of the 5th to win the game. Sam Geldnich would pitch the 5th and strike out the side in order to end the game and give the thunder a 2-0 record in pool play and the overall #2 seed for Sundays bracket play.

             On Sunday the Thunder would face St.Charles for the 2nd time as they were the #7 seed and Thunder #2 seed. Again it was another good game as both teams would pitch well and make plays in the field. The Thunder scored one run in the 2nd and two more in the 3rd and led 3-0 heading into the 6th and final inning. That's when things got interesting. An error would start the inning off and after a wild pitch, a single would plate their first run of the game. After a walk to the next hitter, they had runners on first and 2nd with nobody out. A sac bunt would move the tying runs to scoring position with one out and the next batter would get an infield single scoring one run and St. charles had runners on the corners with only one out and now down 3-2. A walk would load the bases and the Thunder had to bring the infield in trying to cut off the tying run. The batter hit a gound ball to first baseman Jake Lavanway and Jake would fire home to get the force and now all we needed was one more out to move on. The next batter would hit a soft pop up to pitcher Sam Geldnich and the Thunder held on for a 3-2 victory and now headed to the Semi Final vs. Greendale. In the Semi Final, Greendale would strike first in the top of the 1st inning. After back to back lead off walks, the 3rd batter stepped up and crushed a 3 run home run to left and just like that it was 3-0 Greendale. But the Thunder would come right back in the bottom of the inning. After Sam Geldnich lined out to left, Joey spence singled to right to get things going. Evan Roell would then double him home and Dawson Rondorf would follow with an RBI double. George Seaman then ripped a RBI single to right center and just like that it was 3-3 after one complete. The Thunder took the lead in the 3rd with two runs and would add a run in the 4th and two more in the 5th to pull out the 8-5 win and a birth in the Championship game.

            In the championship game vs. Burlington, it was all Burlington. An 8 run first took the wind out of the Thunder and they could never catch up. Three bunt singles in the inning, a check swing roller between the pitcher and first base, a couple walks and an error and a double and it was 8-0 and Burlington only had a couple balls hit out of the infield. They would tack on runs every inning and went on to win 17-3. They were a very good team who executed their bunts, fielded well and pitched well. They were a well rounded baseball team. The Thunder have nothing to be a shamed of. A 2nd place finish with 7 very good teams is something to be proud of. We went 4-1 in the tournament and every single kid contributed to the success. Clutch hits, great defensive plays and lots of kids pitching very well all weekend long. We had some great comebacks and exciting wins. We started off the year with a 15 game win streak and I think that is a great accomplishment. You learn a lot by losing and I think our team will learn some things from this and become even a better team. The kids and parents had some fun bonding time at the hotel and it was just a great weekend overall. Thank you to all our fans who made the trip down to watch us play, we greatly appreciate it.