By Craig Marx, Editor

Over two weeks into its Great Northern Conference schedule, the Antigo Red Robins baseball club is atop the GNC leaderboard having scored its latest win over Medford 12-2 last evening in Antigo.

“Played a very good all-round game,” head coach Scott Farmer said. “There were some things that we saw that we do need to work on – which is good. But as a coaching staff we are having some very good problems as we are having guys come off the bench and hit and show they can play too. Our line-up is hitting stride all the way up and down, which is nice as we can give some guys a break once in a while and know we will be just fine.

Cody Urban picked up the win for the Robins, giving up just a solitary hit to the Raiders in five innings pitched. Urban walked two batters and struck out three, while Collin Meinert closed the game out with two strikeouts.

“Cody threw well – kept the ball down and didn’t let them get any good swings on the baseball. The first hitter of the game had the only hit,” Farmer added. “We got some outs on some very heads-up plays, off of things that we worked on so that we know we can get out of jams.  Both Cody and Collin Meinert had some very nice heads-up plays on defense to keep them from scoring in the first inning.”

Antigo led 9-0 after four innings, giving up two late runs to Medford in the sixth after a walk and error helped the Raiders plate Conrad Bolz and Trenton Woebbeking. The commanding lead began in the third inning with six runs on five hits, including a double from Hunter Kirsch and a triple by Wade Farmer.

The Robins went on to score three more runs in the fourth inning as AJ Kirsch knocked out an RBI double and Garret Held sac flied to left field for another run batted in. Taking an impressive lead into the final innings, Antigo added three additional runs in the sixth inning as W. Farmer batted for his second extra base hit of the day with a single, followed by an RBI single from Urban.

Farmer finished the evening 2-3 with two runs scored, as did AJ Kirsch. Held was 2-2, while Nick Marshall, batting clean-up, was 2-4 with two RBI singles.

Taylor Shaw, a lefty that gave Antigo some brief trouble early on, took the loss for the Raiders. Shaw allowed seven hits and five earned runs in 2 1/3 innings pitched. In all, the Robins pressed the Medford defense with 13 total hits.

The Robins travel to Rhinelander tomorrow evening, with the first pitch thrown at 5 PM from Stafford Field.