Sports
East Beats Central in Come-From-Behind Thriller for State Berth
The Spartans' late-inning rally stuns the Lancers and sends Brookfield East to state for the first time in 23 years — with the same coach.
Bill Woodring coached Brookfield East’s baseball team to state for the first time in school history in 1987 and again the following year.
Twenty-three years later, the Spartans are finally headed back to state and again it’s with Woodring at the helm.
East pounded out five runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to rally and knock off rival Brookfield Central, 7-6, in thrilling fashion at Germantown High School Saturday evening to earn their third state berth in school history.
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“The fact that we came back like that is, you said thrilling, I’ll say beyond exciting, I’ll say very satisfying. But that’s the character they had,” Woodring said. “We had a first-team all-conference guy go down, we had our number one pitcher out for three weeks. We just kept going and going and going. It showed their character again.”
After trailing nearly the entire game and never having more than two hits in an inning, the Spartans collected five-straight singles to start the sixth inning and sent 10 men to the plate in all to spark a comeback that seemed to come out of nowhere.
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Brookfield Central pitcher Ryan Hinz had been cruising, only needing 71 pitches to get through the first five innings and had scattered most of his base runners throughout.
“It was coming into the fourth time around in the order and everyone had seen him (Hinz) a few times,” Brookfield East junior Brandt Rogers said. “We knew his curveball came in and was hanging and if you could sit and get the fastball down the middle, you could drive it. If you had to hit the curveball, just sit and hit it to right field.
“We just got used to him, I guess.”
Central provided a bit of a scare in the top of the seventh. With one out, junior Ryan Fullington reached on an error and advanced to second on the play.
But Pat O’Brien, East’s “bulldog” pitcher according to Woodring, got the next two batters to ground out and the Spartans’ celebration was on.
“They just stayed with it,” Woodring said. “They got themselves down and then they just kept with it and stayed with it, and I think they just kept their confidence and kept their cool.”
The Spartans advance to take on another conference foe in Marquette in Wednesday’s state quarterfinal matchup at Bukolt Park in Stevens Point at 10:05 a.m.