Local baseball: Post 83 strong in Escanaba Sheboygan Press staff • June 20, 2009
Sheboygan Legion's Post 83 team is doing what's necessary to play winning baseball.
Post 83 won its opening two games in the Escanaba, Mich., Tournament Friday night, beating Ashwaubenon/Bay Port 4-1 and Manitowoc 8-4.
"We cut down on walks and errors, and good things happened," said coach Paul VanLanen, whose team improved to 5-3 on the season. "We can't make mistakes, because we're not good enough to overcome them."
Post 83 caught Ashwaubenon/Bay Port the day after many of Bay Port's players won the WIAA state baseball championship. Jared Gruenke pitched well, giving up only one run on three hits in seven innings, striking out two and walking one.
Colin Willis and Ryan Eigenberger each had three hits, and Matt Hendricks was 2-for-2 with an RBI in the opener.
Post 83 got another strong pitching performance in the second game, as Sam Raff allowed one run over 4.2 innings, striking out three and walking one.
Sam Raff and Justin Reineke each had two hits. Jake Ristow hit a home run in the seventh inning.
Sheboygan opens today at 11:30 a.m. against De Pere, then plays Gladstone, Mich., later in the evening.

Baseball: Post 83 Third at Tourney sheboygan press staff • June 22, 2009
There was only one team that Sheboygan Legion's Post 83 baseball team had a tough time handling during a tournament in Escanaba, Mich. Other than De Pere, things went OK.
Sheboygan went 4-2 on the weekend and took third place in the tournament. The only blemishes were two big losses to De Pere by the run rule scores of 14-3 and 16-2.
After winning the first two games on Friday, Post 83 split four games on Saturday and Sunday to take third place.
After opening Saturday with the first loss to De Pere, Post 83 rebounded with a whopping 16-3 victory over Gladstone, Mich., to remain alive in the tournament. Sheboygan pounded out 17 hits in the victory, including a grand slam and five RBI from Jake Ristow (who had three hits), a four-hit game from Josh Gruenke and three hits from Jared Gruenke. Ryan Eigenberger was solid on the mound with a five-hitter, allowing two earned runs.
Post 83 won another elimination game Sunday morning, doubling up Manitowoc 10-5 behind five strong innings from Sam Raff (four unearned runs) and the bats of Jared Gruenke (3-for-4 with five RBI) and Matt Hendricks (2-for-4 with an RBI).
Post 83 then needed to beat De Pere to advance to the title game, but lost. Josh Gruenke, slated to pitch the game, departed early with a swollen thumb and a depleted pitching staff struggled.
Post 83 is 7-5 on the season and returns home to play Manitowoc on Tuesday.