New London, IA- Tarp on, tarp off. No, this philosophy won’t properly train you for an upcoming karate tournament, but it would have served you well on a rainy Saturday evening in New London where Burlington Notre Dame and the Tigers advanced to the second round of the Class 1A Substate 5 District 10 bracket.
Despite the warm temperatures and the rain playing against the defense and pitching staffs, it was small ball that produced the runs in the doubleheader showdown.
Burlington Notre Dame 11, Keota 1
Three-years ago to the day, Notre Dame made the trip to Keota as the underdog and took down the Eagles 11-1, needing the full seven innings. This time the Nikes needed only five to get the job done.
The game did not appear to start that way as the Eagles got the first two runners on base via a hit-by-pitch and a single by Brenna McGuire and Ashton Galindo and an eventual walk loaded the bases in the top of the first inning.
Yet, Payne Prottsman, the ace for the Nikes, kept peppering the strike zone and collected a pair of strikeouts to strand the three Eagles on the basepath. That’s all head coach Chip Chiprez needed from the junior as he was yanked after the Nikes scored five in the bottom half of the frame.
For Coach Chiprez, it could not have played out better for the Nikes,
“You know, that was our plan going in, you know, Payne Prottsman, he hasn’t thrown since the Burlington game, which would have been a week ago, so we wanted to get him 25 pitches and then get him out of there. Luckily for us, you know, we scored five runs right away, so we felt comfortable pulling him out, you know, and Curtis Randall, he’s just coming off the DL with the hip flexor injury. So, you know, we threw him a couple of innings the other night against Fort Madison and then brought him in tonight. So, you know, our philosophy in the postseason is to try to get guys in and out so we have everybody available for the next game, the next game, the next game, so it’s worked out.”
It was a mixture of experience and youth that got the Nikes on the board first with a Jeremiah Crow sacrifice fly and an Eli Oelson RBI gave the squad a 2 to 0 lead before, Kyler Cameron, an 8th grader, punched an RBI-single and Tatum Warner punctuated the inning with a two-RBI knock.
In relief, Curtis Randall threw 38 pitches, allowing just one-run on two hits and striking out four. One of those two hits was the only extra-base hit of the day as Notre Dame worked six walks and three hit-by-pitches to compliment eight singles as the squad put up three in the 2nd and 3rd innings to cap off the scoring.
Prottsman and Cameron would tie Warner with a game-high two RBIs as Maddox Diewold and Landry Haberichter combined for four steals and five runs scored with Diewold adding an RBI.
The final show of the talented youth on the Nikes’ roster was Isaac Lehman, another 8th grader, finished the game on the mound, tossing a strikeout and allowing just one hit in 1.2 innings. For the Notre Dame youth, the coaches instill the expectations at the junior high level,
“We go down to the junior high, you know, throughout the season, the high school coaches go down there and then you know they help the junior high coaches and kind of teach them our philosophy and what we expect when we work with them,” said coach Chiprez. “You know, we treat them just like the high school guys and we expect them to do what what the high school guys do. So I think at a very early age as far as, you know, 7th Grade, I think they, not to the extent that that the you know, the JV or varsity understand, but they start it’s they start processing things and they start getting getting how we run things and then when they when they get to us it’s you know they’re ready to go.”
That youth movement will have to continue to play a big role if the Nikes want to make a run back to the state tournament.
New London 4, Wapello 1
The nightcap game was supposed to be a runaway for New London, especially basing it off of their five-inning 10-0 no-hitter against Wapello in early June; yet much like most of the season, the Tigers would have to battle all seven innings.
It all started with a Kinnick Richenberger single to start off the game. He was able to move over to second on a fielder’s choice then score after Wyatt Marlette slapped a single to give Wapello to 1 to 0 lead after the top of the first.
Not the start Memphis Watson wanted on the mound. He would start the game with a single and his 39th stolen base of the year at the plate, but Marlette preserved the lead after getting Watson caught in a pickle between second and third base after striking out Gavin Strawhacker and getting Kye Reighard to pop out to end the first.
Wapello, behind strong defense, was in the lead 1 to 0 over the favorites. A big surprise considering Wapello had averaged five errors per game entering the contest.
That 1 to 0 lead would persist as Memphis Watson found his groove on the mound, striking out three of the next six outs, while Tate Welcher caught his first runner trying to steal against him. Marlette, with the help of some fine defense by Coy Wiley at third base kept the Tigers off the board, stranding two in the second and third innings.
After a neat double play that went Watson to Gavin Menke-Bailey to Sully Barron to end the top of the fourth inning, the Tigers were still down 1 to 0 and struggling to push across runs. Nevertheless, Watson never had any doubts in his teammates,
“I got confidence with the guys, you know, they can all put the ball in play, and they can have good things happen. One through nine, I wouldn’t say we have a weak spot.”
The rally started with a Gage Burden walk and a steal of second base. Riley Raines followed it up with a singe and he proceeded to take his own bag. A balk, Marlette’s second of the game, would tie the game at one before Sully Barron broke the tie with an RBI-blooper.
Tigers now led 2 to 1. It took four innings, but head coach Jayden Flowers’ squad was on top,
“Yeah, we’ve been off to some slow starts recently” said coach Flowers. “We’re trying to get that figured out. Bats have been a little slow to start of games, but once we see the guy once or twice, then we finally start getting it. We’re just trying to take advantage of those early innings, we gotta start taking advantage of. We can’t fall behind in those.”
One more run would come to cross after some more wild pitching from the relief man Treyton Schulz to give New London a 3 to 1 lead.
“Yeah, Memphis is great. He throws a lot of strikes” exclaimed coach Flowers. “They’re gonna hit the ball. It’s not like we’re going to send him out there to strike everybody out. But he did fantastic job of battling all night and battling back, I think when we can make plays behind him, we look pretty good. So, I think he did a fantastic job tonight on the mound.”
Watson faced adversity in the 5th inning when Wapello’s Schulz and Richenberger hit back-to-back singles but another throw out from Welcher quickly eliminated the threat as Watson again kept Wapello off the board.
A Riley Raines RBI-single in the bottom of the fifth inning would score Gage Burden and cap off the scoring for the night, as Reighard collected the save, striking out one in an inning of relief as the final out was another throw out from behind the plate in Welcher, his third of the night.
Watson would finish the night with the win on the mound, fanning seven in six innings of six-hit ball. He also collected three hits and stole three bases to bring his season total to 41 as the team collected 11 steals for the night. The Tigers are now 5-0 when stealing double-digit bases this season.
Wapello finished the season with a 2-17 record.
New London will now face off against Notre Dame for the fourth straight year in the postseason, with the Nikes having won the past two matchups by a combined score of 21 to 1. For coach Flowers, his squad has to strike early,
“Yep, Notre Dame is a great team. We have to come to play. Like I said, we can’t fall asleep on them. Early innings against teams like that. So, we have to come ready to go and I think we’ll be ready for it.”
New London beat Notre Dame 10-9 in their first matchup of the season, while the Nikes answered back with a 13-2 win in their most recent contest.
You can catch the matchup on KILJ 105.5 FM, kilj.com, on Tuesday, July 8th, at 7 pm with the pregame show at 6:45 pm.
(New London audio courtesy of Andy Krutsinger of the Southeast Iowa Union)