PdC baseball goes 3-0 last week en route to clinching the Southwest Wisconsin Conference Championship
Prairie du Chien’s Drake Ingham crosses home plate during the Hawks win over Richland Center last Friday, May 19. (Derick Kelly/Courier Press)
The Prairie du Chien baseball team poses with their 2023 SWC championship plaque after defeating Richland Center. Pictured in the front row from left to right: Hunter Jones, Dawson Eastman, Noah Pedretti, Bryce Lenzendorf, Drake Ingham, and Tommy Mara. Middle row from left to right: Coach Nate Cejka, Keagan Dull, Ty Wagner, Maddox Cejka, Ryan Waller, Dylan Wright, and Head Coach Ryan Pedretti. Back row from left to right: Max Schneider, Logan Kiesau, Tyler Harris, and Coach Tim Halton. Not pictured: Coaches Jamey Pedretti, Kevin Wagner, Mark Pedretti, Andrew Waller, and Jeff Mara. (Derick Kelly/Courier Press)
By Derick Kelly
Prairie du Chien stepped out of conference play for a night last Monday, May 15 as the Blackhawks hosted West Salem, the eighth ranked team in division two in the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association rankings for the week of May 9.
The two teams squared off in a scoreless pitching battle until the top of the fourth inning when West Salem managed to score their only run of the game off of Prairie starting pitcher Logan Kiesau behind two of the three hits the Panthers offense had in the entire the game.
The game remained 1-0 in favor of the visitors until the bottom of the fifth inning when the Blackhawks managed to push across two runs despite the ball never being hit out of the infield. A one-out walk by Keagan Dull was followed by Ty Wagner being hit by a pitch to put runners at first and second base for the Hawks. Dawson Eastman sacrificed the runners over to second and third base with the second out of the inning before Drake Ingham lined a pitch to the shortstop that was misplayed for an error and scoring both Dull and Wagner.
The rest of the game went quickly in order as both sides were retired 1-2-3 in every remaining half inning as the Blackhawks came away with an impressive 2-1 victory over West Salem, who ended up sharing the Coulee Conference title tied with Viroqua later in the week
Logan Kiesau pitched a complete game to earn the win for the Hawks. He allowed only 3 hits and 1 run in 7 innings pitched with 3 walks and 4 strikeouts. West Salem pitcher Evan Schwier took the hard luck loss for the Panthers as he allowed no hits in 4.1 innings pitched with 2 runs allowed (neither one earned) and 2 walks. Elijah Anderson came on in relief of Schwier to pitch the last 1.2 innings of scoreless, hitless baseball. That means Prairie du Chien won the game despite being no-hit by West Salem, which according to records, is the first time in program history that the Hawks have ever accomplished this incredibly rare feat. With the win, Prairie du Chien improved to 11-6 on the season while West Salem fell to 13-3.
Next up for the Hawks was a home game with the Lancaster Flying Arrows on Tuesday, May 16 with Prairie having a chance to clinch at least a share of the Southwest Wisconsin Conference Championship with a win.
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