November 16, 2024

State-ranked Hawks fly into state tournament

L-S baseball ends long state drought, downs Lenox in substate final

BONDURANT — When Lynnville-Sully head baseball coach Scott Alberts took over the program six years ago, his goal was to make the state tournament.

Some may have scoffed at that goal. Others might not have taken it too seriously.

But the current crop of Hawks bought in and after another postseason win on Tuesday, the L-S baseball team is headed to the state tournament for the first time since 2001.

“When you first start off, maybe it falls on deaf ears. Maybe it was just talk,” Alberts said. “But the group of kids we have right now who have been with us for four years, they heard the message. And they’ve been working so hard to achieve that. They are so bought in.”

The Class 1A No. 4 Hawks got a stellar pitching performance from Conner Maston and a four-run fifth inning was all the offense needed during a 5-2 triumph over Lenox at Bondurant-Farrar Middle School.

Lynnville-Sully is 52-4 the past two seasons, and it will take a nine-game win streak into next week’s state tournament.

“It feels amazing,” said senior Bryce Richards, who had an RBI single in the deciding fifth frame. “All the time and the effort by the coaches and players and just growing up with this group of teammates is amazing and to finish off my career in Carroll is going to be something special.”

The Hawks open state tournament play as the No. 3 seed and they face sixth-seeded and 10th-ranked LeMars Gehlen Catholic at 7 p.m. on Monday at Merchants Park in Carroll.

It will be the fourth and final game at that field on Monday.

“We have been working so hard for this,” Maston said. “This feels amazing.”

Maston pitched all seven innings and allowed two unearned runs on only three hits and struck out 12, walked three and hit one batter.

The Hawk senior improved to 9-0 and his earned run average dropped to .66.

“I knew coming into the game, with the ball in his hand, that he had been preparing for that moment for such a long time,” Alberts said. “He was feeling great and he was throwing well. You couldn’t ask for more from the kid.”

Neither team scored until the fourth inning. Senior Caleb Rea reached on an error to lead off the inning and then stole second base. He moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by sophomore Carson Maston and scored on junior Blake Van Wyk’s RBI groundout to the shortstop.

The Hawks (28-1) stranded six runners on base in the first four innings but broke through in the fifth.

Sophomore Lannon Montgomery singled to lead off the frame before Conner Maston reached on an error. Richards’ RBI single made it 2-0 and Rea’s bunt single loaded the bases with nobody out.

Carson Maston’s RBI groundout to the shortstop pushed the margin to 3-0 and then Van Wyk laid down a sacrifice bunt that resulted in two more runs. Richards scored easily and Rea caught Lenox napping when he sprinted home from second moments later.

“When we had opportunities to score, we made things happen,” Alberts said. “It’s an unselfish team and that matters. Any one of them can be asked to do a job that isn’t necessarily success for them. Everyone wants to hit the big bomb to score, but sometimes you just need a sac bunt to move a runner into scoring position.”

Van Wyk got the team’s first hit in the second inning and finished with three RBIs in the win.

“I was pretty nervous coming into the game. This feels so good though,” Van Wyk said. “Coach told me to lay down a bunt so I did my best to do that.”

The Hawks managed only six hits in the win. Montgomery drew a one-out walk in the first and a two-out walk in the sixth but was stranded both times. He now has a team-best 20 walks this summer.

Van Wyk’s single in the second came with two outs, but he was left on base, too.

In the third, junior Corder Noun Harder walked, stole second and went to third on a Montgomery groundout to second base. Conner Maston then was hit by a pitch, but the inning ended when Richards flew out to centerfield.

The five runs though were more than enough for Conner Maston, who needed 103 pitches to go the full seven innings.

Both his fastball and curve ball were on point. He struck out two in the first inning, stranded two runners on base in the second and left two more on base while striking out the side in the third.

He opened the fifth with back-to-back strikeouts and fanned a pair in the seventh.

Nine of his 12 strikeouts came against three Tigers and Lenox’s 6-7-8-9 hitters went a combined 0-for-10 with two walks and seven strikeouts.

“I knew I had to pitch well to give our team a chance against a pretty good team over there,” Conner Maston said. “I knew they’d be on me as the game went on so I had to work away from the fast ball at times. I had the curve to back it up, and it felt amazing to throw that pitch for strikes.”

Conner Maston ended the sixth inning with only 88 pitches. Carson Maston warmed up in the bullpen before the seventh, but Alberts had no intentions of taking out his ace pitcher with one inning to go.

“The only way he was coming out of the game was if he got to the pitch limit,” Alberts said. “He’s a senior and with the work he’s put in, he needed to finish what he started.”

The defense again made plays to get Conner Maston out of the jams he was in.

In the second, with two runners on base and two outs, Richards fielded a ball in the hole between first and second base that got by first basemen Reese Dunsbergen and then tossed it to Conner Maston who came over from the mound to cover the bag.

A 5-3 double play got the first two outs in the fourth. Walon Cook was hit by a pitch to lead off the frame, but Montgomery snagged a line drive at third base for the first out and then fired the ball to the senior Dunsbergen at first to complete the double play.

“The ground was super hard and it took a bad hop,” said Richards about the play in the second inning. “I was able to get to it and tried to get it out of my hand as quick as I could and Conner got over there to finish it off.

“When our defense wasn’t as good tonight, our offense picked up the slack.”

Conner Maston walked the lead-off hitter in the seventh but got two straight strikeouts after that. The final out of the game came on a pick-off throw from Noun Harder behind the plate.

Lenox (20-8) scored two unearned runs in the sixth thanks in part to a pair of L-S errors. Dawson Evans started the frame with a single and Cook reached on an infield single, too.

“There was some serious resiliency from this group,” Alberts said. “They just buckled down when things got tough. Kids are going to make errors. The game is built on failure. It’s about how you recover from that failure and how you move on to the next pitch. These kids move on and don’t let one bad play linger. It’s so good to see.”

Dunsbergen and junior Lucas Sieck got the other L-S hits, freshman JD Richards scored one run and the Hawks struck out just twice at the plate.

Noun Harder stole his team-leading 36th base, Rea is now 20-of-20 in stolen base attempts and Bryce Richards collected his team-best 38th RBI of the summer.

Cook led Lenox with two hits and he was hit by one pitch and Evans added one hit and one run.

Notes: The 28 wins this season are the most for L-S in at least 15 years. … The Hawks’ last state appearance ended with a first-round loss, but L-S won the state title back in the late 1980s. … Top-ranked Mason City Newman lost 2-1 in its substate championship game against Saint Ansgar on Tuesday. Saint Ansgar is one of two unranked teams in the 1A state field, joining South Winneshiek. The rest of the field includes No. 2 Kingsley-Pierson, No. 3 Remsen-St. Marys, No. 8 Burlington Notre Dame and No. 9 Lisbon. Fifth-ranked Don Bosco, No. 6 North Linn and No. 7 West Harrison did not make the state tournament.