{"id":204243,"date":"2026-05-28T06:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/204243\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T06:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:30:18","slug":"rock-falls-fends-off-erie-prophetstown-in-2a-regional-semifinal-shaw-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/204243\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Falls fends off Erie-Prophetstown in 2A regional semifinal \u2013 Shaw Local"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rock Falls<\/a> got the bats going from the start, and had the answer every time Erie-Prophetstown<\/a> tried to take the momentum back.<\/p>\n

The Rockets scored in each of the first five innings, and Carter Hunter pitched 4 2\/3 innings of scoreless relief in a 9-5 win over the Panthers in Wednesday night\u2019s Class 2A Rock Falls Regional semifinal.<\/p>\n

Rock Falls (14-13) advances to Saturday\u2019s title game against Winnebago, an 11-9 winner over Oregon in the first semifinal.<\/p>\n

After Erie-Prophetstown (6-17-1) took the lead on an Evan Steimle RBI single in the top of the first, the Rockets answered with three runs in the bottom of the inning and two more in the second. Owen Laws had a two-run double and an RBI infield single, Owen Mandrell ripped an RBI single, and another run scored on an error for a 5-1 lead.<\/p>\n

\"Rock<\/p>\n

Rock Falls\u2019 Madden Schueler comes in to score against Erie-Prophetstown Wednesday, May 27, 2026, at the Class 2A Rock Falls baseball regional. (Alex T. Paschal)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great feeling when our offense gets going,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a bunch of guys in there that can hit, and it\u2019s never an issue scoring runs with this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing selectively aggressive, not swinging at stuff that we can\u2019t put in play, that\u2019s the key,\u201d said Connor Fritz, who had three hits, three runs and an RBI. \u201cJust get the foot down and do damage, trust in your teammates no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Panthers battled back to tie it in the top of the third, with four runs on two hits, three walks and a hit batsman. Two runs scored on base-loaded walks, another came across on a wild pitch, and freshman Kaleb Thompson added an RBI single.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe showed some fight early on, jumped out to the lead, then had that big inning,\u201d E-P coach Jeff Wunderlich said. \u201cDefense had a couple of little miscues here and there, but other than that, we showed a lot of fight. We had nothing to lose, so we fought pretty good.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly on in the year they beat us pretty bad, so it was good to see it was a closer game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Erie-Prophestown’s<\/p>\n

Erie-Prophestown\u2019s Braedyn Frank fires a pitch against Rock Falls Wednesday, May 27, 2026, at the Class 2A Rock Falls baseball regional. (Alex T. Paschal)<\/p>\n

Hunter came in with the bases loaded and one out, and got out of the inning with the score tied. He allowed just four baserunners the rest of the way, and retired the final seven hitters in a row. He struck out six and walked two, allowing three hits in relief of Laws, who gave up five runs (four earned) and three hits in 2 1\/3 innings, with five strikeouts, three walks and a hit batsman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just trying to throw strikes, let my defense make plays,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cThe best-case scenario, I\u2019d strike them out and not have to worry about it, but I just wanted to do my part and try to shut them down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Espinoza scored on a first-and-third double-steal in the bottom of the fourth to retake the lead, then Madden Schueler and Mandrell each doubled around a groundout for a run in the bottom of the fourth for a 7-5 lead. <\/p>\n

Hunter reached on an error and scored on Fritz\u2019s double in the fifth, then Schueler doubled in Fritz for a 9-5 lead.<\/p>\n

Schueler, Laws and Mandrell each added two hits and drove in runs for the Rockets, as six different players scored runs, five guys had hits, and all nine spots in the lineup reached base at least once in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHits are always contagious, and we live by that. We got it going today,\u201d Fritz said. \u201cWe trust our guys no matter what, and know we\u2019re going to be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rock<\/p>\n

Rock Falls\u2019 Connor Fritz scoops a ball at first against Erie-Prophetstown Wednesday, May 27, 2026, at the Class 2A Rock Falls baseball regional. (Alex T. Paschal)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rock Falls got the bats going from the start, and had the answer every time Erie-Prophetstown tried to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4662,136,138,137,982,305,15500,6357,10985,12957],"class_list":["post-204243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-baseball","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-erie-prophetstown-preps","tag-high-school-sports","tag-ihsa","tag-premium","tag-prep-sports","tag-rock-falls-preps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}