GRAND CHUTE (NBC 26) – The Bonduel baseball team arrived Tuesday as the most successful team in school history, heading to the WIAA state tournament for the first time in history.
It was a hard-fought battle, but unfortunately the #3 Bears’ season ended with a 2-1 loss to Kenosha St. Joseph with number 2.
“They mean everything,” head coach Don Gruenewald said of his Bears team. “Many of them arrived a year after Covid-19, so we started with 15 players playing baseball – 3 of them. We are getting better every year and I can’t say enough, especially about the seniors. They mean a lot to me.”
The Lancers scored two runs in the first, with Peter Visconti hitting an RBI single and then running to second base after Dominic Santarelli’s homer.
The Bears scored the only goal of the third period on doubles by Easton Reinke and Noah Weier. They had plenty of opportunities to score more points, including plenty of opportunities in the first and fourth rounds.
“We tied up a lot of balls and it felt like if we hit it hard, it was going to hit someone right,” Gruenewald said. “We hired a few guys and then we couldn’t come up with a big hit. We managed to achieve this throughout the year, even during the tournament. We just couldn’t come up with a hit when we needed it.”
Bears pitcher Cade Johnson dealt with several jams and finished a great game that ended with 6 innings pitched and only one run scored.
“For the first time in school history, we achieved our goal,” Johnson said. “Great group of seniors with whom I have been playing for 10 years. I don’t want them to go, but next year we’ll be back stronger than ever.”
