6/9 D-1 baseball: Sommerfeldt / Onalaska hits highs and lows

MIDDLETON, Wis. — He planted some of the trees beyond the outfield wall and helped build the dugouts on each side of the field.

Daren Simms was home on Tuesday.

Unfortunately for the Onalaska High School baseball coach and his Hilltoppers, the trip to Middleton, Wis., was bittersweet. They enjoyed the thrill of beating the state’s top-ranked team and then suffered through a pounding at the hands of Simms’ alma mater.

The memory of a 19-5 loss to Middleton in a WIAA Division 2 sectional final will likely fade some day. At least the details will.

Beating Central 5-1 in the semifinal won’t.

Onalaska was a serious underdog against the Red Raiders. Central owned two regular-season victories over the Hilltoppers, and neither game was particularly close.

Simms’ team wasn’t flashy at all, but it made solid plays defensively and took advantage of just about every opportunity that arose.

How often do those things lead to success in baseball? Just about every time.

“Knocking off Central, the number one team in the state, was awesome,” said Onalaska junior Tyler Adams, who also helped the boys basketball team qualify for a Division 2 sectional final in March. “We went out there and played solid baseball. That was an amazing feeling.”

The loss to fifth-ranked Middleton didn’t feel so good. The Cardinals (20-6) hit four Onalaska pitchers consistently and put the game away with an eight-run sixth inning.

That took Simms from the elation of the biggest win of the season to more of a look like he was run over a bus driven by the school for which he played when he was younger.

It didn’t take long for Simms to have things in perspective. The pain he had for the kids he coached after a disappointing loss was replaced by the realization of what it accomplished.

“I’m proud of what these guys did this year,” Simms said of a group that won its first nine games of the season and recovered from a late losing streak to slip by Logan in a regional final and be the team to end what was shaping up to be a dream season for Central. “They just came up short here in the last game.”

Walking away from the field, he talked more about his memories of playing on it.

Surprisingly, he didn’t tell the same stories to his players. If you know Simms, you know he likes to talk about growing up in Middleton. Adams said the topic never really came up leading into the sectional.

“They wouldn’t care,” said Simms, who also spent a summer working for a landscaping business with Middleton coach Tom Schmitt. “They don’t want to hear all of that.”

Maybe they would like to hear about what he did to help make what Adams called “one of the nicest fields we’ve played on.” How he and some others took it upon themselves to upgrade the facility during the summer of 1995 without even getting approval from the school.

Maybe they’d want to hear about the last time he played on the field. How he was pitching for Middleton’s home talent baseball team that same summer and absorbed a line drive that was hit right back at him.

“One of the guys on the team came over after the play,” said Simms, who raised his right hand to deflect the ball. “He put my hand under my shirt and said, ‘Let’s go.’”

The last two fingers on his right hand were broken.

Onalaska’s baseball program, which finished 16-11 this season, wasn’t broken by Middleton on Tuesday.

It was revitalized by beating the state’s best team on a field that means a lot to the guy in charge of that program.

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