Restart gives Hawks substate win over WB

"It seems like we always have a challenge of not starting fast and when you got a situation like this, if you don’t have a fast start you lose.””

Shane Weirather, Central Lee Head Coach

DONNELLSON – It took just twelve pitches for the Central Lee Hawks to get a win Monday night.
The 6-5 win over West Burlington, the third one-run game the two teams have played this season, came after the two battled to a 5-5 tie Saturday
in Keosauqua before thunderstorms halted the action.
Initially the Hawks were declared the winner with IHSAA officials ruling that the game had to revert back to the sixth inning when Central Lee was up 5-4 at the end of the inning.
But a review of tournament rules revealed the game needed to be suspended and resumed on Monday to give the Hawks a chance to win it outright and reward the Falcons for battling back to tie the game in the top of the seventh.
Hayden Vandenberg took the mound for West Burlington and suffered the loss. He didn’t give up a hit and walked one. After a flyout to left, Vandenberg plunked Ryan Roberts to load the bases with one out
Junior Kayden Ames then hit a 1-2 pitch on the ground to second base, but the Falcons bobbled the grounder scoring Bo Herdrich, who started the resumed game at 1st base after working a walk just before the game was called Saturday night.
The win moves Central Lee into the Class 2A Substate 5, District 10 quarterfinals Wednesday night in Van Buren against Mediapolis in a 7 p.m. start.
Roberts went 3-3 for the Hawks with a run scored. Cory Jones was 2-3 with an RBI and a run scored. Herdrich went 1-3 with an RBI and a run scored.
Chase Johnson got the win going four innings surrendering two runs on three hits and fanning four. Gannon Wells went three innings giving up three runs all earned on four hits and striking out three.
Central Lee Head Coach Shane Weirather said he was glad the Hawks came out to quick starts Saturday and Monday.
“It seems like we always have a challenge of not starting fast and when you got a situation like this, if you don’t have a fast start, you lose,” he said.
“There’s that and if it lasts too long, I’m scared to death of their two big hitters over there. You just don’t want to see those guys come up.
So we needed to get this run in before seeing those guys,” head coach Shane Weirather said of West Burlington’s Vandenberg and Jace Figuereo.
He said he had planned on using James Hemingsen on the mound since Johnson and Wells each threw more than 40 pitches Saturday and were unavailable.
Weirather said he was glad Hemingsen didn’t have to take the mound leaving all his pitchers with appropriate rest for Wednesday’s game.
“Pitch counts have become pretty tough nowadays, especially now. And you want to look good in those situations where you needed a run to win,” he said.
Weirather said with the unique restart he wanted the Hawks to focus on the little things to get the game over quickly.
“That’s all it was - just execute. We needed a ground ball there at the end and we got one.”