Hortonville Stumbles Against Hartford in Division 1 State Baseball Quarterfinal

GRAND CHUTE − Is Hartford's Carter Kutz the best high school pitcher in the state? You'd be hard-pressed to find naysayers on the Hortonville baseball team.

The Hartford senior right-hander struck out 13 and allowed two hits in leading the Orioles to a 4-1 victory over Hortonville in a WIAA Division 1 state quarterfinal at Neuroscience Group Field at Fox Cities Stadium on June 16.

Kutz, a Nebraska commit, mixed in a dominating fastball and solid off-speed pitches to keep the Polar Bears off-balance.

"In the first inning, he came out throwing fastballs right away and we hit some hard balls off of him," Hortonville coach Greg Yeager said. "Then he kind of flipped his pattern. He was pitching backwards, where he was getting ahead with his breaking ball. And we talked about it halfway through the game. But it's easier when you talk about it. Then they have to go and execute it.

"So we hit one hard ball off his breaking stuff all day. That was the difference, with him throwing the curve and slider for strikes and just get ahead and work ahead."

Hortonville (22-8) played catch-up from the start, with Hartford bolting ahead 2-0 to start the game on an infield RBI single from Joe Landgraf and a throwing error from Hortonville that allowed another run to score.

Hortonville scored its lone run in the first inning on a sacrifice fly from Kameron Chronis. That scored lead-off batter Turner Kuhnke, who reached on a triple.

Hartford put pressure on Hortonville starting pitcher Taiven Gass, putting runners in scoring position in each of the first three innings. Ethan Birkel's RBI single in the third gave Hartford a 3-1 lead as the Polar Bears brought in reliever Griffin Jens in the following inning.

The Orioles (22-7) added a run in the fifth on an RBI single from Kaiden Romens to close out the scoring.

Kutz did the rest for Hartford, and only allowed a Hortonville runner to reach second one more time during the game. He struck out the side twice, allowed two walks and hit a batter.

"He's a good pitcher and we have a good lineup, but once they found out we had trouble with his off-speed, it was like he got the ball moving and we were falling behind every time (in the count)," Kuhnke said. "Had faith in our guys going in and faith through the game, but we just came out on the wrong side of stuff."

Gass took the loss for Hortonville, with Jens pitching well in relief, allowing four hits.

"My goal was to go in, keep the damage to a minimum, keep the game close and just make it manageable for our offense to put a couple of runs up," Jens said. "Unfortunately, we didn't get to do that. But it was a good season."

Hortonville was making its 10th appearance at the state tournament and second in the past three seasons. The unranked Polar Bears defeated Kimberly and De Pere — the second- and third-ranked teams in the state, respectively — in the sectional to reach Fox Cities Stadium.

"Kimberly has always been a rival with us and beating them was a great feeling," Kuhnke said. "Didn't always come out on top my whole high school career but we beat them, confidence was through the roof. Then we played De Pere and it felt like we weren't losing. The feeling coming into this game was that we had to beat ourselves and (Hartford) beat us."

Yeager said he made sure to connect with his team during the post-game huddle.

"Yeah, it's tough. The seniors, you wish him well, you tell them how proud you are of them," Yeager said. "If you told me at the beginning of the year, 'Hey, we're going to win 22 ballgames, and we're gonna be playing at Fox Cities Stadium,' you know, you'd have been pretty happy about that. Today it wasn't our day. ... But, you know, overall I'm really proud of that group."

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Hortonville falls to Hartford in Division 1 state baseball quarterfinal