Ankeny Centennial’s lineup proved to be double trouble for the Urbandale baseball team on Monday night.
The ninth-ranked Jaguars pounded out eight doubles among their 18 hits and posted a 10-5 road victory in the second game of a CIML Conference doubleheader, allowing them to salvage a split of the twinbill. Urbandale won the opener, 7-6, on Trey Hicklin’s walk-off homer in the eighth inning.
“Our guys hit the ball well all night,” said Centennial coach Mark Hey.
The Jaguars overcame a 2-0 deficit in the nightcap with three runs in the fourth inning, three in the fifth, two in the sixth and two more in the seventh. Jackson Reed went 2-for-4 with two doubles and two RBIs to lead the way, but he had plenty of help from his teammates.
Reed Anderson went 3-for-5 with a double and drove in two runs. Darin Severs went 3-for-5 with two doubles, scored three runs and knocked in another.
Will Morris went 3-for-4 with two doubles and scored a run. Will Nesler doubled and had two RBIs, while Isaac Bruhl went 2-for-3 and drove in two runs.
Trae Houser (2-3) earned the victory. He allowed no earned runs on three hits and had four strikeouts over the first four innings before Brekken Miller racked up six strikeouts over the last three frames.
Hicklin doubled twice and drove in two runs for the J-Hawks. Alexander Gutmann homered and had two RBIs.
In the opener, Hicklin hit the first pitch from Elijah Starr in the eighth inning over the leftfield fence to end the game. It was his second blast of the day and his fourth of the season.
Hicklin hit a grand slam in the first inning off Morris, who allowed five earned runs on three hits and was pulled after 29 pitches.
“Tonight was really about getting (Morris) a tune-up before Friday,” Hey said of the Class 4A substate quarterfinal against Marshalltown. “Sometimes those games go a little bit south if you’re not hitting your spots. But we feel real good about Will, and we know he’ll bounce back.”
Starr (1-4) kept Centennial in the game, allowing just one earned run on four hits over the next six innings. He had eight strikeouts.
After the Jaguars tied the game at 6-6 in the sixth inning, they had multiple chances to go ahead. But they lost a pair of runners on the basepaths to end that inning, then Urbandale turned an inning-ending double play in each of the next two frames to set the stage for Hicklin’s walk-off blast.
“We had some baserunning errors that probably cost us some runs,” Hey said. “You never like to lose that way, but the guys gathered it all together and came back and kept chipping away in that second game and put together some good innings.”
Anderson went 3-for-4 with a double and two runs scored in the first game. Kohen Bollwinkel went 2-for-4 with a double and one RBI, while Reed went 2-for-4 and drove in a run.
Cade Newman added a pair of RBIs for the Jaguars before going 2-for-3 in the nightcap.
Centennial is now 12-10 in the league and 22-12 overall. The J-Hawks’ records are 4-19 and 12-22.
The Jaguars will host No. 10 Waukee on Tuesday at 5 p.m. The two teams will complete a suspended contest before playing the second game of a doubleheader.
The Warriors are 12-9 in the conference and 22-12 overall after splitting with Dowling Catholic on Monday. It’s likely a battle for fourth place in the league.
