CEDARBURG — Independence Day in Cedarburg features a full slate of fun events for all to enjoy, including a parade, music at Cedar Creek Park, a fireworks display and more.
Among other highlights of the day is the Cedarburg Mercs hosting an afternoon baseball game at Behling Field.
That tradition continued Friday, when Thiensville-Mequon visited for a Rock River Baseball League contest. While the Twins earned a 3-1 victory on the field, it did little to diminish an afternoon the Mercs look forward to each year.
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“The late ’90s or early 2000s,” Cedarburg manager Matt Behling responded when asked when the tradition began. “It just started on a whim, it was like a Sunday, just another game, and then happened to be well-attended and we kept doing it ever since.”
It has become part of the fabric of a day of celebration in the city.
“A lot of out-of-town fans stick around for the game, a lot of locals stick around for the game after the parade,” Behling said. “They support us through and through, and it’s one of the biggest days for them to kind of show up and hopefully we put a good team on the field and try to be a little competitive.
“This is the main game of the year, biggest crowd we’re going to draw,” the skipper added. “To play in front of 100, 200 people, you don’t get that very often at this level.”
Easton Oliver took advantage of an opportunity to pitch in front of a large crowd and the Twins’ right-hander tossed a gem. He scatted five hits and gave up just one run while going the distance to earn the win for the visitors.
“It was nice. It was warm, so I was loose. Everything was just clicking. I pounded the zone, so I got ahead early. I felt in control most of the game. Everything was working,” he said. “Off-speed was great at the start of the game.”
Twins manager Greg Ebbert had not seen Oliver pitch much prior to the contest but came away impressed by his first Rock River outing.
“I don’t know much about him pitching. I saw him a little one game in high school, just for a little bit, so I didn’t learn much,” the skipper said about the Living Word High School product. “It was pretty obvious he had a lot of confidence and had an idea of what he was doing on the mound. That’s somewhat rare for a kid just out of a small high school.”
Oliver set down the side in order in the opening inning, with a pair of strikeouts, then escaped a jam in the second stanza when the Mercs put runners at the corners. By that point, the right-hander knew he had his best stuff and his confidence was growing.
“The first two innings, after I saw a bunch of swings and misses with the off-speed, I knew it was gonna be a tough day for the other team,” he said. “I just had to get the fastball going and my velo picked up as the game went on.”
The Twins plated runs in each of the first three innings. Jimmy Doedens drew a one-out walk in the opening frame, moved up a base on a wild pitch and scored on a double by Jon Wizner. In the next inning, Jerome Pawlak belted a leadoff double, moved to third on a single by Oliver and scored on a two-out hit by Carson Dulak. The visitors added a run in the third with a three-base error off the bat of Pawlak that allowed Luke Scheuerlein to score.
Getting those early runs made things a bit easier for Oliver to settle in on the hill.
“It’s always big to get ahead early in the game, but I thought particularly when you got a new pitcher, nobody on our team has seen before, you don’t know what to expect, so you got a two run lead and you feel OK, that gives us a little leeway,” Ebbert said. “He got some confidence.”
Oliver added that watching the lead grow steadily to start the contest allowed him to pitch the way he is most comfortable.
“I didn’t really have to worry about not letting them score, I could just pitch to contact,” he explained, “which, I feel helped my pitch count. Which allowed me to go all nine.”
Oliver went the distance, striking out 12 batters while allowing just one walk. He scattered five hits along the way, allowing Cedarburg to get baserunners in just three of the nine innings.
“The main thing he did was throw strikes,” Ebbert said. “He’s got some good stuff. He made some of their better hitters not look good at times. He was pretty impressive.
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“Obviously, he was in control of things, but he had the attitude, he wanted to keep going,” the manager added. “So there wasn’t even a consideration of pulling him.”
Oliver added that he wanted to work quick on a hot, humid afternoon, and he was able to do that. He needed just 107 pitches to toss a complete game.
“I told the guys the first inning, ‘Let’s just make the innings no longer than 10 minutes,’ because I don’t want to be out here as much as you guys don’t want to be out here. I’m going to make it quick,’” he recalled about the challenge of trying to beat both the Mercs and the heat.
Oliver throws four pitches, but Behling said it was the slider that gave his club the most trouble at the plate.
“Good command. Throwing very decent early on,” the Cedarburg manager responded when asked what he saw from the Twins’ pitcher. “Got us swinging with a lot of sliders that were well located.”
Wizner led the Twins at the plate, with three hits, including a double, and he drove in a run. His average on the season is now up to .308.
“It was his best day of the year,” Ebbert said. “He’s by far our best batter. He won the batting title last year. He’s not a big guy, but he hits the ball really hard. He knows what he’s doing up there and his attitude is outstanding.”
Pawlak was also on base three times, twice to start an inning.
“He’s got a lot of speed,” Ebbert said. “If we can get him on, there’s a lot of ways of getting him in.”
Thiensville-Mequon plated single tallies in each of the first three innings, but that is all the visitors would get against Cedarburg starter Brett Torbeck. The righthanders yielded three runs (two earned) over six innings while giving up seven hits and striking out four. Noah Kalicki came on in relief and tossed three scoreless frames, allowing a pair of hits while striking one batter out.
“He (Torbeck) commanded the zone. A little bit of command issues early on, but he figured it out pretty quick and definitely did a good job for us for a solid six innings,” Behling said. “Noah’s obviously a solid pitcher too, so it looked like he was definitely commanding his zone, getting pop-outs, some swing-and-misses. Overall, it was a very good pitching battle back and forth. We just got the short end of the stick today.”
Cedarburg got on the board in the sixth, when Pat Daniels drove a two-out double to right-center that allowed Tyler White to trot home.
However, scoring opportunities were few and far between for the Mercs on the day. Behling said that not getting a run earlier, such as when the first two batters reached in the second, made the deficit difficult to overcome.
“Any time you put a runs on the board to limit the deficit is always going to be key. So we got ourselves into a small hole we couldn’t quite get out of. Scoring early always is a key factor in baseball,” the skipper reflected. “Today they happened to do first and were able to hang onto that lead.”
The Twins improved to 6-4 on the season and are in third place in the Northern Division. Thiensville-Mequon returns to action Wednesday, hosting Kewaskum at 8 p.m. at Rennicke Field.
Cedarburg dropped to 4-8 with the loss, but Behling believes his club can make a run down the stretch.
“It’s been up and down. Our record is under 500. We have some really good wins this year, some really bad losses. We’re still in the playoff hunt,” the manager said about the first 12 games of the campaign. “We still have a chance to get into the playoffs as a wild card, possibly the three seed, so we still have a lot of baseball left.
“I expect us to play very well down the stretch.”
On deck for the Mercs is a game Sunday at Hustisford. First pitch at Village Park is set for 1 p.m.