The Whitewater State Farm 10u (3rd & 4th grade) baseball team just wrapped up their season on July 16 with an exhilarating 4-3 come from behind win to take the end of the year league tournament championship. Here’s how they got there. Their season started out flat with a disappointing 0-7 loss to Elkhorn AM Towing. A lack of hitting obvious to be the problem in the game with just a few hits. For the rest of the season that would change. With lots of hard work at practice and taking those improvements to the field the Whitewater State Farm team would go on to hit the tar out of the ball outscoring their opponents by a margin of 189 runs scored to 45 allowed! Great hitting was achieved from the top of the order through to bottom. Leading the team with five home runs was Brayden Cutshall, followed by George Christon and Trevor Bucholtz with three apiece. Great pitching by Brayden, George, Trevor, and Liam Egnoski would continue to dominate all season long as well. In 32 innings pitched Brayden Cutshall would strike out 85 of 92 batters faced with 0 runs allowed on the season. All of the games were important, but the game that would ultimately decide the regular season title was a rematch of the first game loss to Elkhorn. Sweet revenge was in order as Whitewater won the game 18-6 and would go on to finish the regular season with a 13-1 record to wrap up the #1 seed.
In the tournament Whitewater would cruise to a 15-0 win against Delavan and a tough game against the other Whitewater team winning 7-2. That game was secured with a diving catch by pitcher Trevor Bucholtz with bases loaded and two outs in the top of the 6th inning. The championship game would be the next day against the Elkhorn Batterman, whom the State Farm team beat 12-2 in the regular season matchup. That high score would not repeat itself in the championship game as both teams pitched well and played great defense. The game would remain scoreless until the top of the 7th inning as Elkhorn struck first. Whitewater would respond with an RBI groundout by Gavin Dammeir. With the scored tied at 1-1, a mishap on defense would allow the Batterman to take a 3-1 lead. In the bottom of the 8th the first hitter for Whitewater would reach base on a hit by pitch and advance to second on a wild pitch. The next batter struck out. Two consecutive base hits would score Zach Babcock and put Brayden Cutshall on 2ndbase and Trevor Bucholtz on 3rd. The next batter would pop up and they were down to their last out. With two out and two strikes Gavin Dammeir hit a soft fly ball over the pitcher’s head and dropped in front of Elkhorn’s second baseman. Trevor would easily score the tying run from third. But Brayden never stopped running and powered around third trying to score the winning run, against the third base coach’s wishes. The ball easily beat him at home, but a tremendous slide and a late tag would allow him to be safe at home and win the championship in walk off style. The crowd at Treyton’s Field of Dreams went crazy! What an end to the season.
The team roster: Brayden Cutshall, Gavin Dammeir, Zach Babcock, Sam Brockwell, Trevor Bucholtz, Liam Egnoski, Owen Everett, Miles Morgan, Brady Schilt, Arlo Zotti, and George Christon. Head coached by Eric Cutshall, assistant coaches Corey Schilt and Will Dammeir and lots of help from other parents as well was much appreciated. Thanks again to our sponsorship from Bob Cutshall’s State Farm agency here in Whitewater. 16-1 with a 16 game win streak to win regular season and tournament championships! What a season!
Editor’s note: The author of this article and the photographer are unfortunately unknown to the Banner. We would be happy to update the post if that information is provided. Our thanks to Molly Fuller for the submission.
