Prep Baseball Report

Top-10 Stories of 2019: No. 5 Antigo earns its first-ever state title in underdog run


By Andy Sroka
Staff Writer, Associate Scout

Only once before had Antigo been to the WIAA state championships, and that was back in 1995. Never had the Red Robins won a state title until the 2019 squad accomplished that this past spring. Antigo, ever the underdogs, needed wins over one of the state’s best teams, West De Pere, and eventually over a ranked Union Grove in the final game.

Brady Renfro, Antigo’s best player and one of the state’s best, battled on the mound to help his team upset the Phantoms in the semis and his RBI double early helped them answer from first-inning 2-0 deficit. The Red Robins never stopped grinding and they blew the game open in the fifth and sixth to help propel themselves to their first-ever state title.

The PBR Wisconsin staff was on-site in the Fox Cities to watch Antigo’s win its first-ever title. Check out our reporting from on-site that day below.

D-2 CHAMPIONSHIP

No. 9 Union Grove – 3
Antigo – 8

Antigo traveled to the state tournament for the first time since 1995, and this time, they’ll be breaking back first-place hardware. The Red Robins were crowned state champs for the first time in their program’s history on Thursday evening for first time in program history, in their 8-3 win over ranked Union Grove.

Both teams traded runs in the first inning. Union Grove struck first when a one-out walk set the table for a red-hot T.J. Manteufel to double runners into scoring position. With two outs now, Jack Clark flared a single into shallow center to score the game’s opening runs.

That lead didn’t last long when Brady Renfro, the hero of Antigo’s semifinals win over West De Pere, rifled a double into the right field corner to score a run, and he eventually scored on a groundout to tie it, 2-2.

The score was stuck tied until Union Grove benefited from a couple of errors. A lead-off error put a runner on, and he came around to score while tagging up, headed to third on a fly out. An errant throw to third allowed go-ahead run to score, and it looked as if Union Grove was going to be able to cling to it.

But, with two outs in the fifth, Antigo’s big lefty Logan Doering came up to the plate with a runner on first and battered a high fly ball to the right field corner that landed well beyond the wall for a dramatic two-run, go-ahead homer, making it a 4-3 ballgame.

After a quiet half-inning from Union Grove, the Red Robins put the game out of reach and loaded the bases with no outs. A single through the right side of the infield off the bat of Eric Langseth scored a run but the ball trickled past the oncoming outfielder which allowed the rest of the baserunners to score, too, and Langseth glided into third. The Red Robins kept at it and put together a six-run sixth inning, which made it a 8-3 game with three outs to go.

The Broncos tried their best to string together a rally in the top of the seventh, but Antigo prevented them from plating either of their two singles in the inning, clinching the D-2 title victory in the process.

TOP-10 STORIES OF 2019