Wisconsin High School Sports | Wisconsin Sports Network | WisSports.net

By DENNIS SEMRAU 

Wissports.net 

  

GRAND CHUTE – At 6-feet-4 inches, Cody Hanke has an imposing presence on the pitchers mound, normally towering over his opponents. 

  

The Marathon junior left-hander appeared to be just as dominating at the plate on Wednesday at Fox Cities Stadium, too. 

  

Hanke tossed a three-hitter and banged out four hits, including a triple, and drove in two runs to power Marathon to a 7-2 victory over Elk Mound in a WIAA Division 3 state baseball semifinal at Fox Cities Stadium.

 

Marathon coach Steve Warren said recent control problems necessitated a ‘less is more talk with his young ace. 

 

"He had been having some control problems so over this past week we ve done some things in practice. Coach (John) Westfall, our pitching coach, has worked with him on actually taking a little bit of velocity off the ball and getting it in the strike zone," Warren said. 

 

Hanke allowed just three hits and three walks in improving his record to 15-0 this season. 

 

"A couple of times I would just yell the word subtraction out there and he knows what that means and get him focused back in there," Warren added. "So his control was better today. He struggled in the sectional final. 

 

"But today it was better and he kept his focus and he did a pretty good job." 

 

Hanke, Cole Petersen and Ryan Krautkramer delivered consecutive singles to give Marathon a 1-0 lead in the second inning 

 

The Red Raiders (26-3) made it 2-0 in the fourth when Hanke lined a lead-off triple off the right-center field fence at the 405-foot mark and Will Reiche followed with an infield single to shortstop to score Hanke. 

 

"I just put the ball in play and they fell in today," Hanke said of his 4-for-4 performance. "I was seeing the ball well all day today." 

 

The Red Raiders made it 5-0 in the fifth on RBI-singles by Kole Schilling, Hanke and Petersen. 

 

Garrick Day's two-run triple in the sixth inning pulled Elk Mound within 5-2. But Marathon tacked on two more in the seventh to pull ahead 7-2. 

 

"I was hoping we could get a comeback going with that, get some more runs," Day said. "But they came out in the top of the seventh and hammered home a couple of runs and that was the end of it." 

 

Warren said he never considered removing Henke to save innings for the championship game. 

 

"Elk Mound is a pretty good team and a five-run lead here is not that much when you re facing a good team," he said. "Anything can happen. The ball can bounce away from you. You can walk a couple of guys and that can turn into some runs pretty fast. 

 

"So we wanted to let him go. Nick Blume and Will Reiche will pitch tomorrow and do their best." 

 

Marathon and Aquinas will be meeting at the state tournament for the third straight year. 

 

The Red Raiders defeated the Blugolds 3-2 for the 2008 state title and 7-6 in eight innings last year in the state semifinals. 

 

"We were pumped. We came up short last year and that motivated us for these two games coming up here," Hanke said. "We haven t hit the ball like that in a long time. It feels good to get back on track. 

 

"If we can keep that up in the championship game, we ll be alright." 

  

  

Marathon 7, Elk Mound 2 

 

Marathon        0 1 0 1 3 0 2 –  7 14 3 

Elk Mound     0 0 0 0 0 2 0 – 2   3 1 

  

Pitchers (ip-h-er-bb-so) – Hanke (W, 7-3-2-3-4). Day (L, 6-13-5-0-3), Puzio (1-1-0-0-2). 

  

Leading hitters: M – Hanke 4x4, Petersen 3x4, Blume 2x3, Schilling 2x4. 3B: M – Schilling, Hanke. E – Day.