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Two teams, two CWC titles

Wega, Manawa could meet Friday

By Greg Seubert


A pair of Central Wisconsin Conference champions could meet in the third round of the WIAA state softball tournament.

Weyauwega-Fremont won the CWC East Division May 17 with a 12-6 win over Amherst, while Manawa clinched the CWC North Division the same day by shutting out Northland Lutheran/Wisconsin Valley Lutheran in a doubleheader, 4-0 and 13-0.

CWC softball championships are nothing new at Weyauwega-Fremont High School, as the latest title is the Indians’ third in the last four seasons. It’s a different story at Manawa, however, as the Wolves won their first conference championship since 1973.

Weyauwega-Fremont handed the Wolves a 4-0 defeat during the regular season and the two teams would meet again Friday, May 25, for a Division 4 regional championship in Weyauwega if they win their state tournament openers.

Both teams have a bye in the first round of the state tournament, which started May 22. Manawa received a No. 4 seed and hosted fifth-seeded Three Lakes/Phelps May 23 in Manawa. The Indians, on the other hand, received a No. 1 seed, hosted No. 8 Crandon or No. 9 Crivitz May 23 and will host the Three Lakes/Phelps vs. Manawa winner May 25.

W-F 12, Amherst 6
The Indians used Kiley Akey’s bat and Cadyn Ehrenberg’s arm to knock off the Falcons for the second time this season.

Akey had four of the Indians’ hits, including a two-run home run, and drove in three runs, while Ehrenberg struck out 15 batters and held the Falcons to six hits.

W-F scored twice in the top of the first inning, but Amherst tied the game in the second. The Indians answered with two in the third and three in the fourth before Amherst scored once in the fifth to cut the lead to 7-3. W-F added to its lead with two runs in the sixth and seventh before the Falcons came up with three runs in the bottom of the seventh.

Alexa Greening had three hits for the Indians, while Makena McClone and Julia Rice had two each.

Nicole Premus had two of Amherst’s six hits and drove in three runs with a bases-loaded triple in the seventh.

“It feels good,” coach Todd Breuer said. “I know we had four seniors coming back and I know we had our pitching back, but it’s a totally different team, totally different season, totally different feel.”
Those seniors – Ehrenberg, Akey, Greening and Kati Kettleson – played in the WIAA Division 3 state championship game last year, a 5-0 loss to Laconia.

The Indians won their first seven before losing three straight games to Mosinee, Whitnall and winning 11 of their last 12 games, including a 6-0 win May 18 over state-ranked Campbellsport.

“We lost two at our home tournament to two good teams and then we go to Shiocton and lose in the bottom of the seventh, but the girls did respond,” Breuer said. “I have to give credit to my seniors for that. They’re very experienced and they’re not going to get shaken. We have great senior leadership.”

Akey held Campbellsport without a hit and also drove in three runs, while Kettleson had two hits and drove in a pair of runs.

The Indians finished with an 11-1 record in division play, one game ahead of Shiocton, and will take an 18-4 record into the state tournament.

“We are battle-tested and we do have experience, but like I said before, this is a different team,” Breuer said. “Am I feeling good? I do like our chances, but we have to play well. We have the No. 1 seed and nobody’s going to give it to us. It could go either way and we know that.

“I keep telling them that we have to challenge ourselves every night no matter who we’re playing,” he added. “Every game is an important game.”

Manawa 4, NL/WVL 0 (5 inn.)
Manawa 13, NL/WVL 0 (5 inn.)
Morgyn Zielke struck out 19 batters in the two games and threw a no-hitter in the second as the Wolves completed a 10-0 record in division play.

The Wolves scored twice in the third and fourth innings in the opener, Chloe Johnson and Kassidee Zander each had two of Manawa’s eight hits, while Zielke gave up three hits and had 10 strikeouts.

The Wolves scored runs in each of the first four innings in the second game, including one in the first, five in the second, three in the third and four in the fourth.

Zielke’s no-hitter included nine strikeouts. Johnson and Matayah Pethke had three of the Wolves’ 14 hits. Johnson drove in four runs with a single, double and triple, while Pethke had three RBIs and Kelsey Jaeger had two hits.

“It means a lot because we haven’t seen this in a lot of years,” coach Todd Zielke said. “We haven’t won this many games in a long time. These girls are really looking forward to the playoffs now because of this.”
The Wolves took a 12-3 overall record into the state tournament, with the team’s only losses coming against Weyauwega-Fremont, New London (10-4) and 4-1 May 18 in the regular-season finale in Berlin.

Other softball teams, including Weyauwega-Fremont, played more than 20 games this season, but Manawa had several games cancelled that weren’t rescheduled because of the weather.

The Wolves took a 1-0 lead in Berlin before the Indians came up with three runs late in the game to break a 1-1 tie.

“This year, we’ve gone from slow pitchers to fast pitchers, so we’ve had to adjust,” Zielke said. “This is what happened today. We saw a little faster pitcher today. I just told the girls to shake it off, we’ll practice Monday and we’ll get back to where we were.”

It didn’t take Zielke long to see his team’s potential, as the Wolves opened the season with a 35-1 win over Wild Rose and a 27-0 win over Elcho.

Besides the shutouts over Northland Lutheran/Wisconsin Valley Lutheran, the Wolves’ 10 division wins also included 25-0 and 15-0 wins over Marion; 19-0 and 12-2 decisions over Tigerton; and 15-0 and 18-3 victories over Bowler.

“We have seven seniors, so there’s some leadership there. When the confidence was high at the beginning of the season, we were crushing the ball,” Zielke said. “We were trying to adjust (to different pitchers) every game. That’s been the difficult part of the season, but we have a very good team.”

Besides Zielke, Pethke and Jaeger, the team’s seniors include Sydney Bailey, Macy Krenke, Zoe Newlun and Lesley Wilz.

The Wolves have relied on Zielke’s daughter, Morgyn, who will play college softball at St. Norbert College in De Pere, as the team’s main pitcher.

“When Morgyn’s pitching well, the defense plays well and then the bats usually do well,” Zielke said. “When the defense is playing well, we win.”

Zielke said he was hoping for a higher seed for the state tournament, as the Indians are behind Weyauwega-Fremont, Coleman and Shiocton.

“I was a little disappointed in that and I was shooting for a No. 2 or a 3 (seed),” he said. “There are some good teams out there. We faced Coleman last year (in a state tournament regional final) and had a 2-1 lead in the fourth inning, but we lost it in the end. I think we fit right into that group.”

If Manawa and W-F win their tournament openers, Zielke expects his team to be competitive with the Indians in a rematch of conference champions.

Zielke struck out nine batters and gave up only one earned run to Weyauwega-Fremont in the Wolves’ loss to the Indians on May 8.

“We have to be 100 percent and we have to work on our batting again,” coach Zielke said. “We were hot at the beginning of the season and we have to deal with faster pitchers now. That’s what we’re going to work on.

“We have a very good pitcher,” he said. “Morgyn had a lot of strikeouts and a lot of no-hitters. The thing they used against us is we do play in a smaller conference. They looked at the conference we’re in and said, ‘Oh, they’re not that good,’ but we are.”

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