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West shuts out Craig baseball team

JANESVILLE — A four-game winning streak came to a screeching halt Tuesday for Janesville Craig High School’s baseball team.

Madison West’s Josh Minkoff limited the Cougars to three hits in the Regents’ 7-0 Big Eight Conference win at Riverside Park.

With the loss, Craig (8-2, 5-2) fell one game out of first place in the conference behind Middleton and Sun Prairie.

Minkhoff, a lefthander, had the Cougars off balance most of the game. Craig did not get a runner past second base and struck out eight times.

“We didn’t have a lot of good swings against him,” Craig coach Victor Herbst said of Minkoff. “He had a nice change-up, and in a lot of at bats, we were out in front of it.

“I thought Cody (Steed) threw pretty well for us. We just didn’t play very well defensively (four errors) and didn’t give him any support.”

West (8-4, 4-3) got all the runs it needed with two in the top of the fourth. Minkoff started the rally with a one-out double and scored on Eric Kamp’s single. Kamp advanced to second on a Craig error and scored on Ben Wade’s RBI single.

Steed, a sophomore righthander, breezed through the first three innings before running into trouble in the fourth. He struck out three and allowed six runs in 5 1/3 innings, but three Cougar errors helped saddle him with the loss.

Craig’s best scoring chance came in the second when Austin Geller and Charlie Meyer walked to put runners on first and second, but Minkoff got out of the jam with a strikeout.

The Cougars had a six-day layoff in between games, but Herbst wasn’t using that as an excuse.

“These kids know that you better come ready to play every game in this league,” Herbst said. “And we weren’t ready to go tonight.

“You don’t like to have that much time off in between games, but everybody else is in the same boat as us, so that’s no excuse.”

Minkoff had a no-hitter going through three innings before Zach Whalen broke up the bid with a one-out double in the fourth. He was left stranded as Minkoff induced back-to-back flyouts to end the threat.

Craig will be at Sun Prairie on Thursday for a 4:30 p.m. game. Last weekend’s rained out doubleheader at Verona will be made up Saturday.

WEST 7, CRAIG 0

West (ab-r-h-rbi)—Lubarsky, 2b, 1-0-0-1; Schumacher, cf, 4-0-1-0; King, c, 4-0-0-0; Minkoff, p, 3-2-1-0; Kamp, 1b, 3-2-1-1; Wade, rf, 4-1-3-1; Horton, ss, 4-1-1-1; Daly, lf, 4-1-2-2; Pearson, 3b, 2-0-0-0. Totals: 29-7-9-6.

Craig (ab-r-h-rbi)—Bayreuther, ss, 3-0-0-0; Fredricks, dh, 3-0-0-0; DeCremer, cf, 3-0-0-0; Whalen, 3b, 3-0-1-0; Grall, 1b, 3-0-1-0; Weber, pr, 0-0-0-0; Geller, 2b, 2-0-0-0; Meyer, c, 2-0-1-0; Graves, cr, 0-0-0-0; Olin, lf, 3-0-0-0; Wright, rf, 2-0-0-0. Totals: 24-0-3-0.

Madison West 000 213 1—7

Janesville Craig 000 000 0—0

E—Craig 4. LOB—West 7, Craig 5. DP—Craig 1. SAC—Pearson. SF—Lubarsky. SB—Lubarsky, Schumacher. 2B—Minkoff, Whalen.

IP H R ER BB SO

Madison West

Minkoff (W) 7 3 0 0 2 8

Janesville Craig

Steed (L) 5 1/3 6 6 4 2 3

Davis 1 2/3 3 1 1 1 0