The Ankeny baseball players felt right at home as the visiting squad on Tuesday.
Playing on their home field, the Hawks scored in each of the first five innings and went on to defeat Urbandale, 7-2, in a CIML Conference game.
The contest was supposed to be played at Urbandale on Monday, but was postponed due to rain. The J-Hawks then agreed to play at Ankeny as the home team since they were already going to finish another suspended game at Ankeny Centennial earlier in the afternoon.
“If you can score one (run) an inning, it’s hard to beat seven runs,” said Ankeny coach Joe Balvanz. “The guys did a really good job of getting on pitches early in the count and not letting the umpire take something out of your hands with two strikes. I was really happy with their approach and the way they ran the bases.”
Jackson Romig went 2-for-3 and had two RBIs for the Hawks. Easton Lowe went 2-for-3 with a double, scored two runs and drove in another.
Kinnick Vos and Kobe Behrens each had an RBI as Ankeny snapped a three-game losing skid. The Hawks improved to 4-10 in the league and 7-17 overall, while Urbandale’s records dropped to 3-14 and 8-16.
The two teams had split a twinbill on the same field 20 days ago.
“We dropped the second game of that doubleheader earlier, and I don’t think that sat well with the guys,” Balvanz said. “We didn’t play our best baseball there.”
Travis Gerstel (1-1) earned the win, allowing two earned runs on four hits over the first 5 1/3 innings. He walked one and had five strikeouts.
“We got a good outing out of Travis,” Balvanz said. “He did a really good job of hitting his spots and locating his off-speed when we needed to, and I thought we played some routine defense. I continue to see growth in this team.”
Reliever Kyle Clevidence got two outs before Cole Nuzum came in to close it out, needing just 13 pitches to strike out the side in the seventh inning.
“Cole continues to be a great senior leader for us,” Balvanz said.
Ankeny will play a doubleheader on Wednesday at ninth-ranked Centennial.