The Ankeny baseball team was hoping to pull off some surprises in postseason play.
A young and talented Indianola squad didn’t let it happen.
The seventh-ranked Indians ended Ankeny’s season with an 8-4 victory in a Class 4A substate quarterfinal on Saturday at Indianola. The Hawks finished with a 14-25 record.
“Like all year, they never gave up,” said Ankeny coach Joe Balvanz. “We talk about it all the time. I tell them, ‘You’re going to get punched in the mouth. But how many times are you willing to punch back?’ But we showed that today. We fought the whole game.”
Indianola (31-5) used a pair of five-hit innings to score three runs in the first and four more in the third. Ankeny starter Will Davies (1-4) allowed six earned runs on nine hits over the first 2 2/3 innings.
Max Wedmore went 3-for-3, scored two runs and drove in another for the Indians. Bo Blake and Bryant Ritchie each had two RBIs.
“They did a nice job of getting on fastballs and hitting them in places we weren’t,” Balvanz said.
Sophomore lefthander George Blake scattered six hits over the first five innings to earn the victory. Blake (9-0) walked two and had six strikeouts.
“I think the hardest part with him was the tail on that fastball,” Ankeny shortstop Kinnick Vos said of Blake. “It’s easy to give up. The ump was giving him the inside strike, and that’s tough to deal with when it looks like the ball is going to hit you in the hip and it tails into the inside corner. He’s certainly got a lot of potential.”
Blake is the son of former major leaguer Casey Blake. Bo is his cousin.
“George is going to be a handful by the time he’s 18 years old,” Balvanz said. “He’s got some bloodlines to work with, and I think very highly of that family. They took pretty good care of me during my time in Indianola (at Simpson College). So tip of the cap to George.”
After Blake labored through a 26-pitch first inning, Indianola took the lead in the bottom of the frame. Andrew DeWall ignited the outburst with a leadoff double.
Ankeny nearly tied the game in the top of the third. Samuel Sandvig walked with one out and came around to score on a pair of errors, then Brady Carter hit an RBI single to close the gap to 3-2.
Vos also tried to score on the hit, but was thrown out on a close play at home. The Hawks eventually left runners stranded at second and third.
“This team never quits,” Vos said. “We got a lot of guys that love to play the game, and we’re always going to put up a fight.”
The Indians then answered right away, getting a leadoff double from George Blake and singles from the next three batters. Ritchie later capped the inning with a two-run single.
“We just couldn’t get enough offense going to overcome those two crooked numbers,” Balvanz said. “That’s tough to chase, especially when they’ve got a big lefty on the mound.”
Ankeny’s Easton Lowe hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning. Vos later had an RBI double off Ritchie in the sixth.
The Hawks also got a superb relief performance from Zach Halverson, who allowed just one unearned run on two hits and had six strikeouts over the last 3 1/3 innings.
“He just continues to get better, and I think Ellsworth’s getting a little bit of a steal there,” Balvanz said of Halverson. “You can just see the confidence he has now with the baseball in his hand. I thought he did an outstanding job.”
Indianola will host a substate semifinal against Dowling Catholic (18-18) on Monday. The winner will play at No. 4 Iowa City High (29-9) in the substate final on Wednesday.
Despite the loss, Vos was proud of the resilience his team showed after getting off to an 0-7 start this season.
“The team that started the first seven games completely evolved. It was unrecognizable,” he said. “We got the ball rolling (late in the season) when we won seven games in a row. We kind of sputtered at the end, but that’s baseball. Weird things happen. You saw a huge upset with Davenport West (beating) Pleasant Valley.
“Sometimes the ball just doesn’t roll your way. That’s a little bit of what happened today,” he added.
