Hawks hold on against Gehlen, advance to state semifinals

CARROLL — Resilient. Tough. Gritty.

All three words can be used to describe the Lynnville-Sully baseball team. And the Class 1A No. 4 Hawks were all of those things on Monday during their state quarterfinal matchup with No. 10 LeMars Gehlen Catholic.

Lynnville-Sully jumped out to an 8-0 lead, held off a late rally by the Jays and advanced to the semifinals following an 8-7 win at Merchants Park.

“They have tremendous resiliency,” L-S head baseball coach Scott Alberts said. “They have a ton of confidence in each other and they have the will to win. I wouldn’t count us out of any ball game or any situation. It’s one pitch at a time. I don’t care if we are way up or way down. There are seven innings for a reason.”

It didn’t look like the Hawks were going to need seven innings against the Jays after scoring seven runs in the third and adding one more in the fourth.

But a seven-run fifth got sixth-seeded Gehlen back into the game. The big inning by the Jays included a pair of L-S errors. Gehlen had only four hits in the loss.

“We had a really bad fifth inning, but we still had the confidence to be able to win,” L-S senior Conner Maston said. “I’m proud of our guys, especially for it being our first time here. It definitely went south a little bit, but we were there to pick each other up and kept going.”

Maston started the game on the mound but was pulled after 40 pitches so he was still available to pitch in the semifinals.

Carson Maston relieved his older brother with two outs and two strikes in the second inning. He got the Hawks through four innings but was pulled in the fifth after the first two batters reached on a walk and an error by Lannon Montgomery.

Things continued to go sideways for the Hawks as Lucas Sieck and Caleb Rea weren’t at their best on the mound and the defense wasn’t at its best behind them.

The first Gehlen run came on a bases-loaded walk and the next run scored on an error by Bryce Richards.

The Jays mixed in an infield single and three more walks and the big hit was a two-run triple by Connor Kraft.

Rea got the Hawks out of the inning with the lead as Conner Maston recorded two outs on ground balls.

“We are a super gritty team. We always have been. We had a lot of games like this last year, too,” Richards said. “We haven’t had to deal with a game like this this season, but it feels good to know that if I make an error my team is going to have my back.”

The Hawks (29-1) indeed picked up both Montgomery and Richards after their errors. But the duo also made up for their own mistakes at the plate and later in the field.

Carson Maston went back to the mound in the sixth and retired all six batters he faced with the game on the line. His elite curve ball got a swinging strike three to end the sixth and he opened the seventh with a strikeout.

The final two outs came on ground balls to Richards at second base.

“Bryce made an error earlier in the game, but I just told him we’d need him later on, and he came up big in the last inning for us,” said junior catcher Corder Noun Harder, who had two hits in the win. “We struggled in that one inning and things just kind of went south. But Carson came in after being pulled, and he was hitting his spots. We knew in the seventh we just needed three outs and Carson was dealing.”

Noun Harder opened the game with a hard single up the middle and then he stole second base. Montgomery then walked and both runners moved up a base on a passed ball.

But Kraft, the Jays’ starting pitcher, got out of the inning with back-to-back strikeouts and a fly out to center field.

Kraft also fanned two in the second but was pulled in the third after the Hawks sent 12 batters to the dish.

Lucas Sieck opened the inning with a walk and Noun Harder’s RBI triple gave the Hawks the lead. Montgomery’s RBI single made it 2-0. Conner Maston singled and Richards reached on an infield single to load the bases.

Terran Gosselink came into the game to run for Montgomery and he scored on Rea’s RBI fielder’s choice.

Carson Maston’s two-run single pushed the margin to 5-0. Rea scored on Blake Van Wyk’s RBI squeeze bunt and pinch runner JD Richards pushed the Hawks in front 7-0 when he scored on a wild pitch.

“When we got up big, it felt great,” Noun Harder said. “Their crowd was quiet, the students were sitting down and I thought we’d maybe 10-run them and be out of there in five.”

That didn’t happen, but the Hawks added what turned out to be the game-winning run in the fourth.

Conner Maston laced a lead-off double, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on Bryce Richards’ RBI single.

After Gehlen answered with its seven-run fifth, the Hawks’ bat went silent. Montgomery’s one-out single in the seventh was Lynnville-Sully’s only base runner in the final two innings.

Noun Harder smoked a line drive to right field, but Gabe Wiltgen’s impressive diving catch made it a loud out. Wiltgen dove backwards toward center field and snagged a well-hit ball.

“I didn’t have a shred of doubt. I thought we’d put some more runs up on the board those last couple of innings though,” Alberts said. “They made some great plays. That play in right field was insane. That was an incredible catch.”

Noun Harder spent a lot of time over the weekend trying to get his hard contact back. He finished with two hits, one triple, one run, one RBI and one steal in the win. Both of his outs were hard-hit balls to right field.

“I saw the ball really well at the plate,” Noun Harder said. “I watched quite a bit of film on them and it felt really good tonight.”

Alberts’ plan with the pitching staff was working better than expected through four innings. Both Mastons were held at 40 pitches or less with an 8-0 lead.

His plan coming in was to keep Conner Maston at 40 or under and everyone else was a game-time decision.

“We have to get to the next game, but we know Remsen is tough so we wanted him available for that game,” Alberts said about Conner. “We let them back in it, and we had to change our game plan a bit when we put Carson back in.

“We had to get to Wednesday first and my next two guys didn’t have enough to shut it down and the defense wasn’t helping them out.”

Carson Maston will not be available for Wednesday’s semifinal game against third-ranked and second-seeded Remsen-St. Mary’s.

But he got the win and improved to 6-0 on the season. He allowed one earned run on no hits and two walks in 4 1/3 innings. He struck out three and induced seven ground ball outs.

“I just wanted to throw strikes and let my defense work,” Carson Maston said. “We had one rough inning, but that doesn’t make me not trust the guys behind me. I knew if I threw enough strikes, they’d make the plays for us to win the game.

“All of my pitches were working. I located the fastball well. The slider and curve ball were getting swings and misses and weak contact.”

Conner Maston surrendered one hit and one walk and struck out four in his 1 2/3 innings.

Sieck and Rea combined to allow four earned runs, three hits, two walks and one hit batter in one inning.

“He came in very clutch for us tonight,” Conner Maston said about his younger brother. “That had to boost his confidence. He was there all night for us, and we really needed him.”

Noun Harder, Montgomery, Conner Maston and Bryce Richards all had two hits at the dish. The top four hitters in the lineup combined for eight hits, four runs, three RBIs and one walk.

Montgomery walked and had one RBI, Conner Maston doubled and scored two runs and Bryce Richards scored one run and had one RBI.

Noun Harder leads the Hawks with 42 runs, five triples, 80 total bases and 37 steals. Richards has a team-best 39 RBIs and Montgomery has walked a team-most 21 times.

“This one feels really good,” Bryce Richards said. “I made an error in their big inning, but you just have to forget about it. I made up for it later.”

Conner Maston is batting a team-best .519 and he lowered his earned run average to .64. He has 113 strikeouts in 54 2/3 innings.

Carson Maston finished with one hit and two RBIs, Rea added one run and one RBI and Sieck walked once and scored one run. Van Wyk tallied one RBI and Gosselink and JD Richards scored one run.

Kraft led the Jays (23-6) with a triple, two RBIs, one run and one walk, but he took the pitching loss after allowing seven earned runs on six hits and two walks.

In the battle of Hawks, fourth-ranked Lynnville-Sully faces third-ranked Remsen-St. Mary’s (30-2) in the state semifinals at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday at Merchants Park in Carroll.

The other semifinal game features top-seeded and second-ranked Kingsley-Pierson (28-2) and fifth-seeded and ninth-ranked Lisbon (26-4). First pitch for that game is slated for 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

“We are feeling good right now,” Carson Maston said. “We are moving on. We have to clean up some things, but we’ll be ready.”

Notes: The L-S Hawks have committed only 28 errors in 30 games. … Remsen-St. Mary’s and Gehlen Catholic both finished 9-1 in the War Eagle Conference this summer. The two teams split their regular season meetings with Gehlen winning 5-3 and Remsen-St. Mary’s winning 11-1. … Remsen-St. Mary’s also lost 7-4 to Kingsley-Pierson back on May 27. ... Remsen-St. Mary’s started 6-2 but has since won 24 consecutive games. ... Lynnville-Sully takes a 10-game win streak into the semifinals.