FOND DU LAC, WI – Two different rain delays sent the game deep into the night as the Fond du Lac Dock Spiders fell to the Wausau Woodchucks, 11-6, on Saturday night at Athletic Park in Wausau.
The game lasted a season-high five hours and 40 minutes and featured two hours and five minutes in rain delays. With the loss, the Dock Spiders now sit a game and a half up on the Woodchucks and Lakeshore Chinooks for the second-best overall record in the Great Lakes West Division, which will decide the final playoff spot if the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters win the second-half title. The Dock Spiders are at 34-30 on the year, and 15-15 in the second half. The Woodchucks improved to 32-31, 15-12 in the second half.
Dock Spiders starter Noah Magee (Ole Miss) tied his season-high with three innings and shut down the Woodchucks lineup with four strikeouts. Dante Maietta (Waubonsee) then relieved Magee in the fourth and threw two more scoreless innings in his Dock Spiders debut.
The Dock Spiders scored the only runs before the first rain delay with an RBI double from Nick Mitchell (Western Illinois) and an RBI groundout from Andrew Sojka (CSUN) to make it 2-0.
The game then entered its first rain delay that lasted an hour and 24 minutes before play resumed at 9:18 p.m. CT. The Woodchucks went to work and scored a run off a sacrifice fly from Travis Stapleton (Polk State) to make it 2-1 after six.
In the seventh, just 30 minutes after play resumed, the game went into its second rain delay of the night, this time lasting 41 minutes before play resumed at 10:29 p.m. CT. The Dock Spiders would score right after play resumed on an RBI single from Sojka, his second RBI of the night.
The Woodchucks would then explode in the bottom half of the inning. Seven runs came across, including an RBI single from Nik Levensteins (North Georgia) and a bases-clearing three-run double from Stapleton.
The Dock Spiders would respond with one in the eighth to make it 8-4 off a sacrifice fly from Bennett Thompson (Oregon), but the Woodchucks would respond with a three-run homer from Garrett Hill (North Dakota State) to increase their lead to 11-4. In the ninth, the Dock Spiders scored two off a double from Parker Noland (Vanderbilt) as part of a four-hit night and a run-scoring double play that ended the game.
Adrian Lopez (1-0, Menlo) earned his first win of the season while George Henkel (1-1, Milwaukee Area Tech) took the loss. The two teams will meet tomorrow for their final match-up of the season in Wausau at 1:05 p.m.
The Fond du Lac Dock Spiders are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The Northwoods League is the proven leader in the development of elite college baseball players. Having completed its’ 28th season, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 22 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires, and front office staff, over 280 Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including three-time All-Star and 2016 Roberto Clemente Award winner Curtis Granderson, three-time Cy Young Award winner and World Series Champion Max Scherzer (NYM), two-time World Series Champions Ben Zobrist and Brandon Crawford (SFG) and World Series Champion Chris Sale (BOS). As well as 2019 Rookie of the Year and 2019/2021 Home Run Derby Champion Pete Alonso (NYM) and 2021 All-Star, MLB Gold Glove winner and 2019 Second Team All-MLB shortstop Marcus Semien (TEX). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League website. League games are viewable live at watchnwl.com. For more information, visit dockspiders.com download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Dock Spiders as your favorite team.
PHOTO VIA A FLASH OF SUNSHINE PHOTOGRAPHY
