{"id":12768,"date":"2021-08-16T12:42:21","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T17:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/northwoodsleague.com\/wisconsin-rapids-rafters\/?p=12768"},"modified":"2021-08-16T12:44:27","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T17:44:27","slug":"the-top-three-moments-of-the-rafters-2021-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/northwoodsleague.com\/wisconsin-rapids-rafters\/2021\/08\/16\/the-top-three-moments-of-the-rafters-2021-season\/","title":{"rendered":"The Top Three Moments of the 2021 Rafters&#8217; Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Wisconsin Rapids Rafters finished with a winning record for the fifth time in the last six seasons at 38-34.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here\u2019s the top three moments of a memorable <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">summer-<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Rafters Throw Historic No-Hitter as Part of Torrid August<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On August 8th two three-year Rafters&#8217; Nathan Hemmerling (Lakeland) and <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brayden Bonner (Dixie State) combined to throw a seven inning <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">no-hitter against the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Battle Creek Bombers. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The two three year <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rafters pitched the first <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">combined no-hitter in <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">team history. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The no-hitter <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">was part of one of the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">best months in eleven <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">years of Rafters\u2019 baseball. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wisconsin Rapids <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">finished as the hottest <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">team in the Northwoods <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">League winning 11 of <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">their last 13 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">games with just two losses in all of August. The Rafters pitching staff was brilliant as well all season finishing with a 3.59 ERA- the second best mark in the Northwoods League.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>2. McKinley Erves walks-off Woodchucks, Named NWL All-Star<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">McKinley Erves (LaGrange) was a temporary player in <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">early June when he walked <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">off the Wisconsin Woodchucks. The <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rafters scored two runs in <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the ninth with Erves scoring <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the walk-off on a passed ball<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Erves then became one of <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the Rafters players of the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">year being named a Northwoods League All-Star. He <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">had two double digit hit <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">streaks. His .341 BA in 61 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">games ranked 10th of all Northwoods League players. And Erves had numerous game-winning hits and spectacular leaping catches in the outfield.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Rafters Stun First Place Fond du Lac, Win Season Series Over Dock Spiders<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Rafters were the thorn in the side of playoff bound <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fond du Lac this season with a 7-5 record. Wisconsin <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rapids was the only team in the Northwoods League with a winning <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">record versus the Dock Spiders. This was best represented <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">by an incredible 12 inning 7-6 win for the Rafters in <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fond du Lac, part of five road wins over the Dock Spiders. In the 12 inning game in late June <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rafters\u2019 pitchers stranded Fondi\u2019s game winning <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">run at third base in three consecutive innings.<\/span><\/p>\n<article id=\"post-12763\" class=\"post-12763 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-current category-team-news\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><em>###<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The Wisconsin Rapids Rafters 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\u2019 27<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0season, 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 250 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 (WAS), 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 Home Run Derby Champion Pete Alonso (NYM) and MLB Gold Glove finalist and 2019 Second Team All-MLB shortstop Marcus Semien (TOR). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League website. All league games are viewable live via the\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/portal.stretchinternet.com\/nwl\/\"><em>Northwoods League portal<\/em><\/a><em>. For more information, visit\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.raftersbaseball.com\/\"><em>www.raftersbaseball.com<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Rafters as your favorite team<\/em><\/p>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"pagination\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Wisconsin Rapids Rafters finished with a winning record for the fifth time in the last six seasons at 38-34.  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":12769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-team-news","category-update-ticker-all-categories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.5 (Yoast SEO v26.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Top Three Moments of the 2021 Rafters&#039; Season - Wisconsin Rapids Rafters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stage.northwoodsleague.com\/wisconsin-rapids-rafters\/2021\/08\/16\/the-top-three-moments-of-the-rafters-2021-season\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Top Three Moments of the 2021 Rafters&#039; Season\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Wisconsin Rapids Rafters finished with a winning record for the fifth time in the last six seasons at 38-34. 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