Rain causes Rennicke field troubles

While most of Monday in southeastern Wisconsin was blanketed in sunny and warm early summer weather, there was an early morning, hour-long downpour that hit the North Shore area of the suburbs pretty hard.

And as always, that spelled bad news for the Homestead baseball team's home venue of Rennicke Field and the high-level league game between the Highlanders (6-2 in the North Shore and 12-3 overall) and Nicolet (5-2, 12-2) scheduled for later that night.

The field has such drainage problems that it seems to become saturated every time a cloud passes overhead.

"My assistant coach called me at about 6 a.m. and told me and I said 'You had to be kidding me,' " Highlanders coach Ernie Millard said. "It was so bad that I told people I could have worked on the field for eight hours to get it ready, but I wasn't going to."

The game was postponed until Friday at 8 p.m., pending more rain. Nicolet coach Dick Sykes joked that it was a bit of conspiracy theory as Homestead's best player Casey Barnes, would have missed the regularly scheduled game because of college orientation at Northern Michigan, but will be back in time for the make-up on Friday.

As it was, as of 7:30 p.m. Monday night, 30 minutes before the scheduled game time, the first baseline at Rennicke was still soaked and there was a small pond around third base.

But beginning in August, Millard and the rest of the Mequon-Thiensville baseball community will look to put a lot of those problems behind them when a vast fundraising effort will finally bear fruit and contractors begin work on revamping the site.

"We've raised $75,000 for new lights and about $30,000 for the new field," Millard said. "There will be new drain tile and the field will be pitched towards the parking lot so we can get water to run off."

The two-year project, which was helped in great part by a $30,000 gift from the Nicholas Foundation, will also include a 52-foot high length of safety netting that will run from first base to third base.

"That's as important as anything we're doing with the lights or the field," Millard said of the netting.

The make-up game Friday will be of huge importance to the conference race, as Nicolet and Homestead are neck and neck with West Bend West (6-3, 13-3) and Cedarburg (8-2, 14-4) for league honors.

Nicolet highlights

The Knights had an abbreviated schedule due to the June 21 graduation. They dropped a pivotal 4-2 decision to host Cedarburg on June 18 when Knights ace Sam Kohnke lost for the first time this season after giving up three runs in the first. Sykes had questions with the home plate umpire's strike zone, which partially explained the fact that Kohnke (four strikeouts and four walks) threw 67 pitches in the first two innings, but only 34 the rest of the way.

Nicolet had only four hits in the game.

The Knights bounced back with an 11-5 non-conference win over Catholic Memorial on June 20 as Kohnke had two hits, including a home run and five RBI while Sal Maniscalco and Robbie Mayer had two hits each. Nicolet used three pitchers, including winner Brandon Zall.

"We were a little flat due to all the time off in the beginning of the week, but we were back to our old selves by the weekend," Sykes said.

Homestead highlights

In the 3-2 league win over Whitefish Bay on June 18, Mike Collins got a clutch RBI single to make it 3-1 in the top of the seventh. That became important as the Blue Dukes pushed a run across in the bottom of the frame to make it 3-2 and had runners on second and third with two out.

Brady Bingham (12 strikeouts and three walks) then got a groundout to third to end the game. Bingham also had two hits for Homestead.

A five-run second allowed the Highlanders to cruise past Greater Metro Conference Northern Division leader Brookfield East 8-1, on June 19 as Barnes had a home run and two RBI, Bingham three hits including a home run and five RBI and Zach Enea two hits.

Doug Mueller pitched a complete game six-hitter. The Highlanders had 16 assists, in what Millard called "their best defensive performance of the season."