APPLETON — 2 seed Hortonville, after dominating the sectional round of the playoffs came into the state tournament red hot.
They took on seven seed Middleton and the Polar Bears kept that momentum going — it took awhile but eventually they were able to pull past the Cardinals for a 3-0 win.
There was a sea of Hortonville fans at the stadium, and it kind of felt like a home-field advantage for the Polar Bears.
“Our crowd was great - loud, but hey, Middleton put up a great fight, they’re a great team and they battled,” said Hortonville head coach Greg Yeager.
Arizona State commit Hortonville senior pitcher Thomas Burns pitched a complete game shutout. He went all seven innings, only giving up three hits while striking out 8 Middleton batters.
“He showed us why he’s one of the best pitchers in the state tonight," Yeager said.
“I mean that was huge, I had (defense) behind me, I had confidence in them the whole way. We got the bats rolling. We got the job done, moving onto the next day," Burns said.
The unfortunate thing is that Burns is maxed out for his pitches, he will not be able to pitch another game for Hortonville for the rest of the tournament.
“As of right now, he’s not available on Thursday,” said Yeager about if his team is able to make the title game. “We got confidence in the guys available as well."
Brett Sommer, Camden Kuhnke and Nate Vela each had an RBI in the game. Sommer's came on RBI triple in the fifth to put the first run of the game on the board. Kuhnke beat out a throw at first to allow Sommer to score to make it 2-0. Vela had a RBI sacrifice fly to second base in the bottom of the sixth that scored pinch runner Nathan Grams from third thanks to the Middleton second baseman stumbling a tiny bit.
Next up, Hortonville will take on three seed Franklin on Wednesday evening.
