REGIONAL- After making a splash in the opening rounds of the Section 7A baseball tournament, the North Woods Grizzles saw their season come to an end last Thursday with losses to two higher seeds at South Ridge.
Winners of their first two tourney games, the No. 5 Grizzlies drew the stiffest challenge they could face in Thursday morning’s winner’s bracket game, No. 1-seeded South Ridge, ranked third in the state in Class A in the Quality Ratings Formula used to seed tournament play. The Grizzlies pinned their hopes for an upset on a razor-thin home loss to the Panthers in May, 3-2, in a game that might have fallen the Grizzlies’ way if not for a couple of plays.
North Woods took the early lead in their first at bat, with Louie Panichi reaching base when he was hit by a pitch and then came home to score on a hit by Talen Jarshaw.
But this one would be no cliffhanger like their first game, as the Panthers obliterated the Grizzlies’ 1-0 advantage in the bottom of the first, bringing 11 batters to the plate and scoring six runs.
The Grizzlies were shackled by South Ridge pitching until the sixth inning, when Panichi laced a triple to right and scored on a Cedar Holman single, making the score 10-2 at that point. South Ridge scored another run in the bottom of the inning, then retired three Grizzlies batters on strikes in the seventh for the 11-2 win.
That dropped North Woods into the afternoon elimination bracket against No. 4 Chisholm, a team they upset in the second round, 5-4, just two days earlier. There would be no repeat, as the Bluestreaks stymied the North Woods offense. Chisholm took a 1-0 lead in the first, then knocked starter Panichi off the mound with a five-run third inning. John Warren came on in relief and did a solid job of holding the Bluestreaks in check the rest of the way. But the North Woods bats were stagnant, as Panichi had the only official hit of the game, a fourth-inning double that ended up in a score after a Holman sacrifice grounder.
The 6-1 loss was the end to the Grizzlies’ first season under Head Coach Steve Baker, an 11-8 season that was a huge turnaround from the 3-12 campaign in 2024.
“It’s hard not to be happy with the outcome of the season, and we played a lot of great games,” Baker said. “When we talked earlier in the year, it was these little parts of the game needing to come together, and they did. We went on a couple of runs and had some really good games. We just ran out of gas today, we just didn’t have our stuff.”
Baker praised Warren’s performance on the mound, noting that he had to recover from a midseason injury.
“John dove into first base and dislocated a couple of fingers, so it slowed down his pitching,” Baker said. “He missed a lot of innings because of that, and now he’s come back this strong after that. It was a beautiful performance today – he just doesn’t quit. Which is what we love about all the guys on this team. They don’t quit. They’re just they fight, fight, fight, and they became a family this season.”
Baker said that he plans to be back at the helm next season, one he already has high hopes for.
“We’re losing great talent with this group of seniors, but we still have great talent coming up and great talent returning,” he said. “So yeah, as hard as it is today, we’re already looking forward to next year. We’re excited.”