TRAVERSE CITY — Traverse City got rocked.
Green Bay brushed off bus legs to squash the Traverse City Pit Spitters 10-5 in Tuesday’s Northwoods League baseball game played for the Great Lakes Championship at Turtle Creek Stadium in Traverse City.
The Rockers knocked off Wausau 6-4 Monday and returned that night to Green Bay, getting up early Tuesday to leave at 7:30 a.m. for the six-and-half-hour drive to Traverse City, arriving three hours before first pitch.
Green Bay earned its second berth in the Summer Collegiate World Series in three years. The Rockers face the winner of Wednesday’s game between Mankato and Duluth in Thursday’s championship game.
“No one can ever take away what they accomplished this year,” said Spitters manager Todd Reid, who was named the NWL’s Manager of the Year in his first year in the role. “The Northwoods League postseason, it’s crazy. You have that team over there, less than 20 guys. So many guys have to bail, go back to school. One of the things that makes our club and organization special is we have 30 guys in this dugout that all wanted to be here. Sometimes baseball doesn’t go your way. One tough inning and in a bad spot, but we lost with the guys. We lost with our dudes, guys who had performed all year long, and they just got us today.”
Grady Mee was 4-for-5 with two runs to lead Traverse City, which won both halves of the Great Lakes East Division and put up the league’s best record with a dramatic 10-inning win in the regular-season finale.
The team’s 49-22 record was the second-best win total in franchise history.
“That’s a testament to these guys and our organization for how they treat them,” Reid said. “You know there’s going to be a letdown, and those first couple games you come back from winning the first half, they’re different guys. Big weight off their shoulders for making the playoffs, but we got a couple wins early, and then we just rolled to one of the best halves we’ve ever had.”
Max Hammond needed 38 pitches to get through the first inning, but escaped with only one run allowed.
Traverse City West grad Jack Griffiths came on in the second inning in relief of his future Central Michigan University teammate.
Nathan Webb came on with two out and two on in the fifth and worked out of a jam by sawing off Jeremy Delamota, with pieces of the shattered bat flying across the infield.
Griffiths threw 3.2 frames with one run allowed and two strikeouts. Webb tossed 1.1 innings, surrendering two runs.
Green Bay added two runs in the sixth to go up 4-0 and broke it open with six more in the seventh, with three Pit Spitters errors contributing to the onslaught, including two on fly balls to the outfield. Drew Ferguson allowed only one earned run in the inning.
Eli Selga was 4-for-5 with two RBI, Joe Menella drove in two runs and the Rocker’s only Michigander, center fielder Max Humphrey, was 3-for-4 with a double and an RBI. Humphrey, a Mount Pleasant native, is a freshman at Kent State.
Eliott Traver came on to toss the final two innings, allowing only one base runner while striking out two.
Mee scored on a bases-loaded walk in the ninth for the Spitters’ final run.
Only five of the 14 runs between the two teams were earned in a game featuring five errors, all in innings where runs scored.
Traverse City got on the board in the eighth, loading the bases with one out, producing runs on a Green Bay error, another on a Jake McNamara fielder’s choice and then a two-run Hunter Herndon double.
The 1,047 attendance was nearly 300 more than the other NWL playoff game Tuesday.
The Spitters will try to run it back and finish the job next year. Reid said numerous players already said they want to return to Traverse City next year.
“I can’t even count,” Reid said. “So many guys want to come back here and play and and finish their career, at least at the college level.”
Infielders Mee and Aaron Piasecki, along with pitcher Nic Mirabella made the league’s postseason All-Star team. Assistant coach Caleb Berry earned Co-Coach of the Year.