(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
When it comes to postseason baseball, all it takes is one team to get hot at the right moment to end another squad’s season.
Ninth-ranked Ankeny Centennial was hoping that it could reach a Class 4A substate final at No. 6 Iowa City Liberty and potentially advance to the state tournament for the first time in program history.
But the Linn-Mar (Marion) Lions had other plans.
Linn-Mar came to Centennial on Monday, erupted for a pair of seven-run innings and put an end to the Jaguars’ season in a gut-wrenching 16-1 loss in a six-inning substate semifinal.
“I love these guys, and I love this team,” said Centennial coach Mark Hey. “I told them (Sunday), very selfishly, I always want one more practice and one more game. But eventually every season ends and when it ends in substate, you just feel like you fell short of your goal.“
The Jaguars knew what it felt like to be on the right side of a blowout postseason win. They opened substate play hosting Marshalltown on Saturday, and they were able to collect eight hits and 11 runs.
There were hopes of keeping junior Will Morris rested for a potential pitching start on Wednesday, so Hey put his faith in Trae Houser, who threw a two-hitter with six strikeouts on the way to the 11-1 victory in six innings.
Just two days later, the Lions came to town and completely turned the tables on Centennial.
Fielding errors cost the Jaguars early as an errant pickoff attempt helped Linn-Mar take a 1-0 lead in the first inning. A more costly error on a throw to third following a bunt attempt brought in two more runs for the Lions to make it 4-0 in the fourth.
That was just the start of things in what turned out to be Linn-Mar’s first of two seven-run outbursts.
Centennial replaced Darin Severs with Morris after an RBI single put the Jaguars in a 5-0 hole, but Linn-Mar’s bats continued to remain hot.
“Darin is an all-conference pitcher, he was 7-0 and around a 1.65 (ERA) coming in,” Hey said. “He’s had an outstanding year, and he’s a kid that didn’t even dress varsity last year and he’s just really turned himself into an outstanding player. He’s going to play at Northeast Iowa Community College and have a great career up there.”
A hit by pitch was followed by an RBI triple, single and double that put the Jaguars down 9-0 with a run rule being threatened against them after just four innings.
Jackson Reed gave Centennial a little bit of life in the bottom of the fifth after drilling a one-out double to right field. Cade Newman moved him over with a single, and Alex Cory drove him in while grounding into a fielder’s choice.
The Lions responded, though, with another seven-run inning in the top of the sixth against Morris and another reliever, senior TJ Hood. A pair of one-out singles ignited the rally.
“Our pitchers just didn’t locate very well, but they had all year,” Hey said. “Every pitcher has a game where it just doesn’t feel right, the ball just doesn’t come out of your hand right, and you can’t hit the spots you’re trying to hit. Give Linn-Mar credit, when we made a mistake, they hit it hard and played some outstanding defense.”
Linn-Mar pounded out 17 hits altogether, four of them for extra bases. Charlie Sarsfield led the way for the Lions, going 4-for-5 with a double, a triple and four RBIs.
Centennial made the most of its final three outs with seniors Josh Quinlin, Grant Crowner and Kohen Bollwinkel all getting a chance to close out their careers with one last at-bat. Morris was also able to get on with a single in the process.
It’s a tough way to see the season come to an end, but that doesn’t mean the Jaguars saw the year as a failure by any means.
Centennial went from being unranked and projected to be toward the bottom of the CIML standings going into the season to producing a 24-14 season overall while battling its way inside the top 10 rankings in 4A.
“I know this team came from a team that nobody really had any expectations for, we weren’t ranked in the preseason and everybody kind of picked us to finish in the bottom two or three of the conference,” Hey said. “The great senior leadership out of this group helped get them to be a team that was in almost every game.”
Linn-Mar (20-20) will play at Liberty (31-9) on Wednesday for a trip to next week’s state tournament.
