Baseball: Blue Devils outslug Muskies
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By Dearrel Bates | Friday, July 18, 2008 |
At the Brady Street Stadium concession stand in Davenport on Monday night, the sellers ran out of everything — hot dogs, brats, soda, water, you name it.
On the baseball diamond, the two teams playing in the Iowa Class 4A substate semifinals — Davenport Central and Muscatine — never seemed to run out of runs, hits, walks, errors, you name it.
Finally, when the almost three-hour marathon ended in front of a large and noisy crowd, Central had prevailed 15-10.
“Before the game, we talked about jumping on Muscatine, getting ahead of them early,’’ Central coach Jay Ryan said. “We came out swinging with a good approach at the plate.’’
The Blue Devils, shooting for a third consecutive 4A state tournament appearance in Des Moines next week, jumped on Muscatine in the top of the first inning. The first 10 batters Central sent to the plate against Muskies’ starter Seth Sander and reliever Dustin Schultz reached base, with eight of them scoring.
“That first inning was obviously the key,’’ understated Muscatine coach Matt Rivera. “We never gave up and kept battling back, but when you score 10 runs you’re supposed to win.”
The two Mississippi Athletic Conference rivals, which had split a league doubleheader, collected 33 hits between them, including 10 extra-base hits, in addition to 25 runs. Both teams used three pitchers, and they combined to walk 10 and hit two batters. In addition, the teams had seven errors between them.
“I knew maybe I’d have to go in relief,’’ said Central’s Eric Irons, who came on for starter Nick Bakeris in the fifth inning and contributed three hits (including his fifth homer of the season) and an RBI on offense. “We were ready from the start, with our crowd pumping us up. I’d been in a slump but spent extra time in the cage getting ready for tonight.’’
In that opening eight-run salvo, the Blue Devils had 12 batters parade to the plate, getting seven hits and three walks, plus benefiting from two Muscatine errors. Connor Gilland, Alex Gowey and Max Mayfield each drove in two runs with hits, while Chase Cartee and Dallas Burke had one RBI.
Muscatine responded with four runs in its half of the inning, including the first of two home runs (and four hits on the night) by Eddie Failor, his sixth and seventh round-trippers. Ben Hammann also belted a two-run double.
That was an indication of how the game would go. Central (17-14) got one run in the second, five in the third and one in the fourth, while the Muskies (20-17) added one run in the third, three in the fourth and two in the seventh.
“I never felt comfortable until Ryan (Schlueter) got the final out in the seventh,’’ Ryan said. “We wanted Bakeris to take us as far as he could on the mound, and I didn’t want to use Gilland because he had pitched all seven innings on Friday in our win against Iowa City West.’’
In the contest, in addition to Irons getting three hits, so did teammates Chase Cartee and Bakeris while Gilland and Trevor Kenyon two each. Every player in the Central lineup had at least one safety.
For Muscatine, Failor had four hits while Ethan Schroeder had three and Brance Rivera, Kyle Flickinger and Brandon Nau two apiece.
The victory moves the Blue Devils into Wednesday’s substate title game at Burlington against the MAC champion Grayhounds. The game has a 7 p.m. start.
Contact the sports desk at (563) 383-2285 or sports@qctimes.com.
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