L-S baseball locks up third straight SICL title

SULLY — Lynnville-Sully head baseball coach Scott Alberts told his team in the postgame circle that they sometimes make it look easy.

But Alberts remembers when it wasn’t so easy.

The Class 1A No. 5 Hawks won their third straight South Iowa Cedar League championship on Monday and two seniors hit their first career home runs on Senior Night as Lynnville-Sully downed HLV, 10-0, in the team’s regular-season finale.

“It’s not easy. I was here when we started this and a lot of these kids were not,” Alberts said. “This is our third straight conference title so they don’t remember where we were at back then. These guys have come a long way.

“It’s a lot of effort and a lot of extra reps outside of the season. I really appreciate all the hard work the senior class has put in.”

Seven seniors were recognized before the game. Corder Noun Harder has started every game he’s played in during his five-year varsity career.

The Hawks were 10-8 his eighth-grade season and 18-11 the next year. Since then, the senior class has been part of a program which has gone 75-8 the past three seasons.

“It was goal No. 1. It sets us up for another postseason run,” Noun Harder said about the conference championship. “It feels great to get it again. Now our goal is to make it back to Carroll. We’ll take it one game at a time, but I’m excited.”

The Hawks used a seven-run first inning to dispatch the Warriors in five innings on Monday. The opening frame included a grand slam by Lucas Sieck and a two-run shot to almost the same spot by Blake Van Wyk.

It was the first career varsity homers for both players. Sieck finished with two hits, two runs, one walk and four RBIs.

“It feels great. It’s about time,” Sieck said. “Blake and I have both hit the ball hard all season but just couldn’t get them to go out. I wasn’t even sure that one was going to go. I was just trying to square it up.”

Noun Harder opened the bottom of the first with an infield single. He stole second and then went to third on a throwing error.

CJ Nikkel drove him in with an RBI single, Carson Maston followed with a single and Lannon Montgomery walked to load the bases. Sieck then belted an 0-1 pitch over the fence in left field.

Gosselink reached on a one-out error and with two outs, Van Wyk clubbed a two-run homer to left field.

The Hawks (22-3, 15-0 in the SICL) sent 10 batters to the plate in the frame.

“Finally. That’s all I have to say,” Van Wyk said. “First one ever. I have been having a rough time hitting this year. My batting average doesn’t reflect how I’m hitting it though. Hopefully this can get my confidence up.

“I have a few foul homers this year and those get to me, but this one felt good.”

The seven runs were more than enough support for Maston, who started on the mound and tossed four innings. He allowed one hit and two walks and hit one batter to improve to 7-0 on the season.

Jack Bowlin tossed a scoreless fifth and struck out two while walking one.

Maston needed just seven pitches to get through the first and then fanned two in the second after allowing his only hit of the game.

He opened the third with back-to-back strikeouts but loaded the bases with two walks and one hit batter. The inning ended though with another punch out and he fanned all three HLV hitters he faced in the fourth.

Maston’s nine strikeouts bring his season total to 62 in 38 2/3 innings. He lowered his earned run average to 1.09.

“I’m proud of the guys. We dropped a few games that West Marshall weekend, and I think it woke us up a little bit,” Noun Harder said. “We are getting on teams early this week, putting hits together and things are coming together at the best time.”

The Hawks did not score in the second. Nikkel drew a lead-off walk and then he stole second.

With two outs, Sieck hit a pop up to the infield that landed on the grass after mis-communication between two HLV players. The inning ended one batter later though.

Terran Gosselink opened the third with a single and he stole second. With two outs, Noun Harder clubbed an RBI triple that hit the fence in right-center field.

It was Noun Harder’s fifth triple of the season, which ranks second in 1A. He also ranks fifth in the state with a .577 batting average.

“It feels really good,” Nikkel said. “To be able to come out here our senior season and start up where we left off is amazing.”

Nikkel started 23 games last year but played mostly in the field only. He’s happy to be able to help the Hawks at the plate this season, too.

Nikkel finished with one hit, two walks, one run, one RBI and one steal in the win over HLV (1-12, 1-12). He leads L-S this season with 20 walks and 35 runs and he’s batting .358 after going only 2-of-20 last season.

“It feels great to make an impact both in the field and at the plate,” Nikkel said. “To be able to prevent runs and score runs is great.”

L-S ended the game early following a two-run fourth. Lannon Montgomery led off the frame with a single and then Sieck walked. An infield single by Samuel Philby loaded the bases and then Karter Smead made it 9-0 with an RBI walk. Davis Utech finalized the scoring with an RBI fielder’s choice.

Philby and Smead are two seniors who did not start the game. Alberts hoped his team would start fast enough to be able to get them in.

“I was glad they got a chance to get in there,” Alberts said about Smead and Philby. “HLV has one win on the season, but this is not a slouch win. No one over there is quitting. They have good batters and athletes. The fast start was good for us.”

Noun Harder had two hits, one triple, one run, one RBI and one steal and Maston, Montgomery, Gosselink, Van Wyk and Philby had the other hits.

Montgomery and Gosselink both scored two runs, Montgomery and Smead both walked once, Gosselink stole one base, Utech and Smead each tallied one RBI and Matthew Mintle scored one run as a courtesy runner. Van Wyk’s hit was the two-run homer in the first.

“It’s one of our goals, and it’s good to get that one again and to do it on our field on Senior Night makes it more special,” Van Wyk said about the SICL title. “We are not done yet though.”

The Hawks are done until their opening round district game against ACGC (1-19) on July 6 though.

Alberts took the blame for the large gap between games. He got his dates mixed up and thought the first postseason game was this Saturday.

“That’s on me. I just didn’t want to play a game too close to the postseason,” Alberts said. “There’s an extra week in the season, and we didn’t catch it.

“I think it will be OK for this squad. It’s a veteran team which has played a lot of baseball, and we have a few guys who could stand to have a week or so off.”

Notes: Noun Harder has started 126 games in his varsity baseball career. He’s led the Hawks to three straight undefeated runs through the SICL. L-S is unbeaten against 1A teams this season, too. … The other seniors recognized before the game were Sieck, Van Wyk, Nikkel, Utech, Philby and Smead. ... Cole Fontinel had HLV’s lone hit and stole one base. … L-S had a 10-1 advantage in hits and the Warriors were plagued by three errors. The Hawks defeated HLV for the sixth straight time. … Alberts said the team will play some intra-squad games before the postseason starts. “We’ll bring in an umpire,” Alberts said. “It won’t be the exact same thing, but they will be getting game-like work.” … The Hawks committed their only error on a pickoff attempt to first base. The HLV runner advanced to second but was thrown out trying to reach third on an impressive throw by Montgomery.