Elmwood remains above .500 for the season

By Reagan Hoverman

The Prescott Pirates have established themselves as one of the best townball teams in Pierce County, which was solidified with an 8-0 blowout over the Elmwood Expos on Saturday, June 25, notching the Pirates’ sixth consecutive victory.

The Pirates, hosting the Expos at Fire Hall Field in Prescott, jumped out to an early 2-0 lead. Peter Brookshaw’s double to the center field gap scored Billy Brookshaw from second base to go up 1-0 and later in the inning, Kevin Woebke scored Peter Brookshaw from second base with a single to take a two run lead.

In the top of the second inning, Prescott pitcher Conner Cress notched a three up, three down inning. Throughout the afternoon, Cress found his groove and pitched several shutout innings. However, Elmwood had its fair share of opportunities to score.

In the top of the third inning with the Pirates leading 2-0, Brigs Richartz of the Expos hit a single up the middle and then stole second base to put himself in scoring position. With only one out, it was Elmwood’s best early scoring opportunity. After a strikeout by the next batter, Evan Sisko hit a single down the third base line.

Cress walked the next batter to load the bases with two outs in the inning. With the bases loaded and only a two-run advantage, Cress dealt an off-speed pitch that initiated weak contact and a groundout to end the inning.

In the bottom of the fourth and fifth in innings, Prescott began to run away with the game. The Pirates scored two runs in the bottom of the fourth frame to take a 4-0 lead and then tacked on three more in the bottom of the fifth to go up 7-0.

By the time the final out was made, Prescott had secured an 8-0 victory, marking its sixth straight and improving the overall record to 9-2. After the game, Prescott’s Michael Lytle spoke about the win.

“I haven’t been at every game, but we’ve been putting up anywhere from eight to 12 hits a game,” Lytle said. “That’s been pretty consistent for us for the last four or five years. It’s a good thing to have.”

Prescott is a program that has had an unusually low turnover in recent years. They have started a similar roster for nearly half a decade and have had success as a team during that time.

“We’ve got a good solid core group of guys,” Lytle said. “I’d say we have nine or ten core guys that have shown up consistent- ly the last five years or so. Now we’ve got a couple of young guys that are sprinkling in and putting up some good numbers and hitting the ball well.”

While nearly the entire roster was born and raised in Prescott, there is a small group of guys that are from Bloomington and decide to play for Prescott. The aforementioned Woebke, as well as Dylan Gausman, Eric Munson and Eric Kivi are all part of that Bloomington transplant group.

Because of Prescott’s continued success in recent seasons and their hot start to the 2022 campaign, Lytle and the rest of the roster is confident that they have enough talent to make some noise in the playoffs this year.

“I think every year we expect to make the playoffs and make a decent little run,” Lytle said. “The first goal is, especially still being in the regular season, to finish at the top of the St. Croix Valley Baseball League. Then from there, it’s a new season just like any other sport. We just hope to be playing great baseball at the right time.”

While Prescott is hoping to gear up for a playoff run, the Elmwood Expos have slightly different expectations. In recent years, the Expos have struggled to stay above .500 as a team and compete with most teams in the league.

After adding some young talent and retaining important veteran players, Elmwood has gotten off to a hot start in the 2022 sea – son, compiling a 6-3 record in the first month of action. For longtime player Tom Sauve, who now mostly serves in a managerial role, taking that next step as a program is the biggest goal.

For years River Falls, Hudson and Prescott have dominated the St. Croix Valley Baseball League and have been consistently atop the standings. As Elmwood has gotten better, other teams in the league have started to throw better pitchers against the Expos because they pose more of a threat. Sauve explained the change in competition.

“What’s starting to happen is we’re starting to see each team’s better pitchers,” Sauve said. “What we need to do is be able to respond to that. We’re capable of hitting that pitching, we just need to do it more consistently.”

The Saturday afternoon game against Prescott is an example of that as they faced one of Prescott’s better pitchers, who only allowed a couple of hits during his time on the mound. Sauve spoke about trying to elevate the team into that top tier with Prescott, River Falls and Hudson.

“Right now, we’re beating all of the teams that we should beat,” Sauve said. “The teams at the top of the league, the Hudsons, Prescotts and River Falls’ of the world are laying into us right now and we’ve got to figure out how to compete with them.”

Elmwood is good enough to get into the playoffs, but once the Expos get there, they won’t be playing any easy teams and will have to compete with some of the better teams in the state.

“We’re going to get into the playoffs, but in order to do anything (meaningful), we’ve got to learn how to beat a team like that,” Sauve said. “We need to be more consistent. We’ve got a lot of guys that are 19-20 years old.”

While most teams in the area have a strong presence of both young athletic players and experienced veterans, Elmwood is primarily composed of young players with veterans sprinkled into the roster.

“Right now our two veterans are Cody Holden and Adam Churchill,” Sauve said. “Adam is hitting over .300 and is having good days at the plate day in and day out. Cody has been at it a long time and we’ve flipped over with a lot of young kids. Our four starting pitchers, the oldest one is 20.”

The youth is going to take time to develop, but according to Sauve, Elmwood is on the right track and is trending in the right direction. The next game for the Expos is on July 6, on the road against New Richmond with the first pitch set for 7:30 p.m.

The next game for the Prescott Pirates is on Saturday, July 2, when they host Hudson at 1 p.m.

Elmwood hitter Braden Wolf swings at a pitch during the Expos’ game on the road against the Prescott Pirates on Saturday, June 25. Photo by Reagan Hoverman