The Genesee Rebels worked their way back above .500 on the season with a 6-2 victory over the Ixonia Snappers on Sunday, July 7th, at Ixonia Town Park. The win puts the Rebels at 7-6 on the year and in a tie for fourth place in the standings with the Oconomowoc Titans.
Here’s the short and the long of it. DeMarais pitched 8 solid innings for the Rebels allowing only 1 run on 10 hits while striking out 6 and walking none. Chris Elliott hit a three run bomb in the top of the first inning off of Ixonia starter Ray Koszak who went nine innings allowing 6 runs on 14 hits. That proved to be enough as the Rebels worked their way out of a few jams and got one more run in the third and two in the eighth to take the victory.
Now for the rest of the story:
Coming into the game, the Rebels’ hitters knew they had to be patient and wait for their pitch as Koszak has kept them off balance with his barrage of curve balls and other junk in the past. It looked like there would be a ton of offense right off the bat on Sunday. Aaron Dolan drew a one out walk which was followed by an Andy Sturtevant single. Chris Elliott followed that up with a three run shot to right center. As is usual with Elliott, he did not get cheated on this one! Koszak then settled in and got the next two hitters out.
DeMarais retired the Snappers in order in the bottom of the first.
The Rebels pieced together two singles in the top of the second but couldn’t push a run across.
It looked like the Snappers would get on the board in the bottom of the second as the first two hitters reached on singles before Sturtevant picked off Justin Wildeson from second base. Sturty must have been feeling rejuvenated after spending 10 days in Greece with his new wife as his arm looked the best it has in years on Sunday. Come to think of it, he had a little extra hop in his step and pop in his bat. Although the jury is still out if this boost of energy came from the honeymoon or spending a night curled up in the bathtub.
Anyways, after Sturty picked Wildeson off of second base, the Kyle Schmoker hit the third single in a row to right field, but instead of scoring a run, it only put runners on first and second. DeMarais struck out the next two hitters to end the threat.
That inning proved to be the way it went for the Snappers all afternoon. They knocked out 10 hits, however only one of them was for extra bases as the rest were little dink and dunk line drive flares into shallow outfield. Thankfully, the Rebels brought their defensive game as DeMarais’ pitching was backed up by solid play all around.
The middle innings were pretty boring with a few hits here or there for both teams, but mainly it was good defense and off balanced hitters. As Bauer so aptly pointed out, “We sure like hitting lazy pop flies off of this guy.” Yes we do Bauer. Yes we do.
After plating one run in the third off of a Frank Schwefel double and a Kevin Biederer single, the snappers did not get a man on third base until the 7th inning. With runners on second and third, DeMarais struck out Kiederer and got Wildeson to fly out to left to end the threat.
Mark Wershay pitched the ninth and made confused everyone, even the umpire, with his nasty pitches.
The Rebels return to action when they head to East Troy to take on the Express and the awesomely loud train whistles that accompany every single pitch of the game at 1:30pm on Sunday, July 14th.
Highlights:
- Matt Bauer, Andy Sturtevant, Chris Elliott, Mark Wershay, and Chris Theisen all had two hits on the day
- Brian Szanja developed a new hitting philosophy. “I don’t swing at the first pitch. Then swing at the second no matter what.” You laugh, but it worked. He knocked out three line drive hits for arguably the best offensive performance of his life. Hopefully East Troy doesn’t read our website and decide to pitch out on the second pitch of his next at bat.
- Kyle Stasik, the self-proclaimed “Rally Killer” rounded first base hard on a fly out to right field.
- Chris Elliott swung hard every time he was up to bat and was rewarded with one bomb, a double, and two deep fly outs to the track.
- Andy Sturtevant reached base the first three times he came up to bat, but then the honeymoon magic wore off and he had two lazy flies to end the day.
- Aaron Dolan threw his helmet in disgust after flying out to left field which may have been the only time in his life that he became angry.
- DeMarais shook off his mulching injury to throw over 113 pitches. He even threw 15 of them hard. He should be good to go again in another two weeks.
- Alex Lawrence was pointing out a cute girl in the stands to Theisen that ended up being Theisen’s sister. Oops! See the jug.
