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Baseball Pioneers split with Maroons

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By Shannon Heaton | Friday, May 09, 2008 | No comments posted

By Shannon Heaton

For the Times

Both Moline and Alleman could take some solace from Saturday’s Western Big 6 Conference baseball doubleheader split at Holmgren Field.

The host Maroons stayed on top of the league, even after dropping a 12-11, eight-inning loss to the Pioneers in the first game, thanks to a six-run third inning that fueled a 9-6 second-game victory.

And Alleman didn’t lose any ground on the league-leading Maroons despite the split, while doing something no one else has done in Big 6 conference play — beat Moline. The split means both teams’ title chances are still very much alive.

Next Saturday, the Maroons (15-5, 7-1 Big 6) host Galesburg, needing a split to earn at least a share of the title. A sweep of the Silver Streaks means a Maroon outright title. Alleman (12-4, 6-2) travels to Rock Island needing a sweep of the Rocks just to have a chance at a share.

“My read on it, 15 innings later, is that both Moline and Alleman are pretty good teams,” Pioneer coach Chris Lemon said. “We hit their best, they hit our best. It was like a 15-round title fight.”

Both teams could certainly connect on some haymakers, bolstered at times and hampered by others by a snarling westerly breeze that held up balls traveling to left field and gave an extra boost to those going to center and right.

“You’re never comfortable. No lead was safe today, not in this wind,” Maroon coach Derek Lindauer said. “I said to the pitchers, ‘This is what pitching at (Chicago’s) Wrigley (Field) feels like.’ ”

A pair of long balls certainly helped the Pioneers in the first game. First baseman Elliott Kelso drilled a first-inning homer over the left-field wall, a ball that still might be traveling were it not for the wind, and catcher Mitch VanNatta’s three-run shot to right-center in the extra inning, to start and finish Alleman’s scoring.

“I didn’t even know it was actually out until (first-base coach) Dylan (Cross) told me to keep going. I felt pretty good after that,” said VanNatta, who ended the first game with a deliberate stomp on home plate to force out a Maroon runner with the bases loaded and a ground ball hit just in front of the plate. “We were just really excited to beat Moline.”

Despite putting together a 2-0 lead through 2 1/2 innings, the Pioneers couldn’t keep that excitement going in the bottom of the third, as Moline’s Thomas Lindauer and Ethan Naab each had two-RBI hits in the inning. Though Chris Larsen faced struggles on the mound in the first game, he had fewer problems at the plate throughout the day, with four hits and four RBIs, including three in the second game.

“We just knew we had to win the second in order to stay where we were; if we won, we’d be all right,” Larsen said. “We knew the first game was going to be like that, both teams probably in the eight to 10-run area. We knew they would put runs on the board, we knew we would put runs on the board.

“If we just came out with a focus and purpose, and got our hits, we’d come back.”

Now, the season hangs on the final weekend.

“I really thought 7-3 would be good enough (to win the league), just with pitching (in the conference),” Lindauer said. “If you’d said at the beginning that we’d sweep, sweep, sweep and split to get to this point, I’d take it.”