Cougars scratch out district victory

SHEFFIELD – A long Saturday turned into an early Sunday morning, but everything was worth it for AGWSR, who pulled out the 4-1 Class 1A District 2 first round game against West Fork ending on Sunday, July 12 at Sheffield.

The game ended with a bang, as the Warhawks had the bases loaded with no outs, but a short fly to left and then a fly to right that ended with a double play at the plate put the finishing touches on an eight-hours-plus saga.

“It was great,” AGWSR coach Dave Showalter said. “A really nice play by Darren. You don’t always get a lot of opportunities for that kind of play. He made an outstanding throw; we kind of had a little adversity there.

“We’d had some smooth sailing on the mound, Luke (Starr) was good, he just ran out of pitches. We had confidence in Ben (Macy), he did what he normally does. He gets guys to put the ball in play and let the defensive players take care of it. Chase (Harms) made a nice catch on the run to get the first out and then just an outstanding catch, throw, tag between Darren (Veld) and Brody (Roder).”

West Fork coach Tom Shreckengost had a hard time pinpointing what went wrong for his team on the play.

“He tagged, (it was a) good tag, but the kid just…he even double-clutched,” Shreckengost said of Veld’s one-hop throw home. “I don’t know what happened, didn’t get a good jump, I don’t know. A good bang-bang play. It just happens. We struggled, so that play didn’t matter. We’ve got to take chances at some point.”

Even Starr, who struck out 13 batters, before taking up his position at first base said the play was huge.

“I was offering the cut, but I didn’t think the guy was going to go home,” Starr said, “but Darren threw a really good throw, one-hop and Brody laid down a good tag, that was awesome.”

After a brief but impactful thunderstorm that included small hailstones shortly before play was to start, it left the field needing nearly four hours of work to get it in playable condition.

“We started hitting at 3:30 and it started hailing on us, actually,” Starr said, “but we didn’t leave (for Sheffield) until 7 (when the second game originally was supposed to begin).”

Showalter added, “It’s hard to prepare for something like that. We had our regular hitting time where we come in and get some swings. We wanted to get up here and watch a little bit of the first game, but we didn’t know how much. We had the kids in and out, relax as much as they could, made sure they had something to eat. But, they are a pretty loose group of kids, they have their fun. They didn’t seem too worry about it. They wanted to play and they showed up right from the beginning and made an impact for us.”

It made Kellen Cameron, who hadn’t given up an earned run all season, the tough-luck loser in which he didn’t have to labor nearly as hard as Starr. AGWSR got a slow roller that died on the infield between the pitcher’s mound and first base from Bradly Roder and then three straight fielder’s choice errors led to three runs and then the Cougars never trailed.

“I was nervous coming in, for sure, I knew they were a good team, but the first couple of innings, it felt good, and after that, it was smooth sailing, really,” Starr said. “The outside corner was kind of inconsistent, but when I got it, it is tough for batters to hit. And then, throw in the curve and then the changeup, mixing it up and it was giving them a hard time.”

Showalter added, “He’s a senior, thrown a lot. I thought he put everything he had into his game tonight. It’s a situation where you win or you’re done and he made sure that he was going to walk off the field with his head held high and I thought he did. Really happy we get to keep going. We’ll re-group later today, I guess, and get ready for the next one.”

It was another head-scratcher for Shreckengost.

“The deal with him and what’s weird about the whole situation is, he pitches a complete game, and he throws 60 pitches against these guys,” Shreckengost said. “Luke Starr, he pitched a great game, threw 13 strikeouts and goes 110 (pitches) and we get in the position we need to be in. I’ve never seen it where (had to work a lot harder). We got him deep into counts, we did what we needed to do, just didn’t hit the ball. That’s been our M.O. all year and now pretty much our whole season, not hitting the ball. So, we’ve got to work on the off-season and work better and be better at hitting.

“Kellen is our guy we want to pitch in games like this and just didn’t work out.”

Showalter knew of Cameron going into the game.

“He’s an outstanding pitcher,” Showalter said of Cameron. “Kind of followed him through QuikStats this year and Cameron definitely had a good year for them. I know he’s thrown a couple of shutouts. He hasn’t given up a run. They’ve always been good defensively. Even the game we had down at Ackley, it wasn’t high-scoring there. I can’t remember who threw for them then, but he was outstanding, good defense behind him. We knew we had to take opportunities when we had them because you never know how many you are going to get against a team like this.”

The Cougars get Northwood-Kensett, 12-4 winners against West Hancock, which had gotten out to a 3-0 early lead against the Vikings in the “early” game on Saturday. They were scheduled to play against them on Tuesday, July 14 at Mason City Newman, weather permitting.

“We got to watch all of that game, that is a really sound team,” Showalter said. “This is a tough conference, the Top of Iowa these guys all play in. We’re kind of the odd-man-out for our district, but they are competitive top to bottom. Northwood does a lot of good things defensively. They can take care of business at the plate. We’re going to have to play our best baseball again.”

Starr added, “Watching Northwood play, they are pretty good. They hit the ball well, but I think they are beatable. It should be a good game.”

AGWSR improved to 9-1 overall. West Fork closed out the season at 7-8.

“So, these guys worked their tails off to get the field ready three times and finally we got it to where it was playable,” Shreckengost said. “All of the coaches here didn’t think it was going to happen. All of these people saying ‘thank you,’ and this and that. We tried to make it happen, got it in and I asked the boys if it affected their playing, if it made them tired all the raking and they said, ‘no, it actually made them want to win more.’ One of those deals.

“We came into a buzz-saw. Luke Starr is a great pitcher and he took care of us, and that’s the way it goes. Work harder in the off-season and if there is no football season, we’ll go off and play baseball somewhere.”

AGWSR 4, West Fork 1

West Fork    000   001   0     -    1     3     5

AGWSR       003   010   x     -    4     4     4

Winning battery– Luke Starr, Ben Macy (7) and Brody Roder. Losing battery – Kellen Cameron and Nate Hubka. Two or more hits– None. 2B– AGWSR (Bo Gerbracht). SAC– None. SB– AGWSR (Ben Macy, Wyatt Benning). HBP– None. RBI– WF (Dylan Schlader); AGWSR (Bro. Roder).