Southeast Iowa- Classes 1A and 2A for baseball and Classes 3A through 5A for softball with district champions decided and the winners from last night’s contests one game closer to the state tournament. Here’s how all of our local teams fared.
Softball
Class 3A
Region 8 saw two close games with West Burlington taking on Assumption and Washington hosting Central Lee. The Falcons gained a 3 to 1 lead in the top of the 4th inning, but the Knights jumped for four runs in the bottom half of the frame and never gave up the lead to win 6-3.
West Burlington finished the season with a 25-9 record.
The bottom half of the bracket saw Washington appear to break the game open with a two-RBI double by Alivia Anderson gave the Demons a 4 to 1 lead at the end of the 5th inning. The 7th inning rolled around, and the Demons only needed three outs.
The Hawks had other plans, striking for four runs to take a 5 to 4 lead into the bottom of the 7th inning. The Demons proceeded to load the bases with only one out in the inning; unfortunately for Washington two flyouts couldn’t score the tying run, ending their season in upset fashion. Washington finished the season with a 24-12 record.
Central Lee will look for another road victory against Assumption in the Regional Championship on Tuesday, July 16th, at 7 pm.
Class 4A
Fort Madison put up 18 runs in their first-round matchup in region 5 against Keokuk, but were unable to manage a run against Xavier, losing 6-0. The Bloodhounds ended the season with a 14-19 record.
In region 8, Burlington handled Central DeWitt with ease, winning 6-1. The Grayhounds will take on North Scott on the road on Tuesday at 7 pm for the Regional Championship.
Baseball
Class 1A
For the second year in a row, Burlington Notre Dame took on Moravia for the district championship. The Nikes’ Jaxon Sadler and the Mohawks’ Wyatt Throckmorton was the ultimate set up for a pitchers duel similar to a season ago.
The Nikes proceeded to score 10 runs and ended the game in the 5th inning with a shutout performance on the mound by Sadler and Payne Prottsman. A Lucas Johnson RBI double in the second inning got the scoring going for the Nikes, but the fourth inning was when disaster happened for Moravia.
The Nikes started the inning with a Spencer Brent single, then the Mohawks, almost as if the ghosts of yesteryear took over the defense, erred on three separate occasions in the inning, prolonging the inning. This set up Logan Brent for a three-run moonshot to left field, giving the Nikes a 7 to 0 lead.
An Isaiah Crow two-RBI single capped off an eight-run inning to lead 9 to 0. Back-to-back, one-two-three innings defensively set up a Spencer Brent lead off double in the fifth inning to present an early exit for Moravia. the conjunction with the rest of the game, it was an error that scored Brent and ended the game.
Head coach Chris Chiprez and the Nikes were plenty excited after the dominant victory,
“We’re feeling pretty good, actually. You know, we thought that we were in for a dog fight, and we were the first couple innings, you know, I mean, Moravia is well coached, they’re a good team. They got some great players and then you throw at Throckmorton out there on the mound. He’s one of the best pitchers in the state. So, for us, for our guys to battle and like I said, Logan Brent, that was a huge, I think, a momentum swing in, in the game, you know, and then, you know, we capitalized on some mistakes you know, and I was proud of the bottom half of our lineup. I thought Logan had a clutch home run there and then I thought Lucas Johnson hit the ball really well as well.”
Not only were the bats hot, Sadler and Prottsman turned in quality innings and more importantly kept their pitch count down,
“It was really huge, you know, we talked about that, you know, we talked about our offense, you know, over the last couple days., ‘OK, we need to put pressure on them.’ We need to get some runs so we can save our pitching for Tuesday if we survive that. You know? So, it was. It was huge. We didn’t have to use Caden Schwekner, which was also huge. And we limited Payne Prottsman to, not many pitches. So, it’s it worked out to our advantage.”
Fairfield will be the host sight for the Class 1A Substate 6 championship game against Burlington Notre Dame and Sigourney as defeated BGM 6-1 with Isaac Burns notching three RBIs on a double. KILJ 105.5 FM, kilj.com, will be on the call.
Class 2A
After several stellar pitching performances in their Substate 5 District 10 postseason journey, Mediapolis finally met their match with Anamosa, as the Blue Raiders scored four runs in the first two innings.
Nevertheless, the Bulldogs did not give up scoring a run in the 5th, 6th, and 7th innings to tie the game. Ultimately, Anamosa won on a walk off, defeating Mediapolis 6-4.
The Bulldogs finished the season with a 21-7 record.