During his high school career on the Ankeny Centennial baseball team, Emerson Alberhasky was often overshadowed by fellow 2024 graduate Joey Oakie, who is now pitching in the Cleveland Guardians’ organization.
Now, Alberhasky has become a star on the mound, too.
The sophomore righthander recorded seven strikeouts over 7 1/3 innings to lead Wartburg College to a 5-2 victory over Coe in the championship game of the American Rivers Conference tournament on Sunday at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids. The title was the Knights’ first ARC tournament crown since 2017 and the program’s league-best 11th tournament championship overall.
Alberhasky (4-3) allowed two earned runs on five hits while setting a new single-season program record with 105 strikeouts, surpassing Ryan Doty’s previous mark of 104 set during the 2012 campaign. He delivered another dominant postseason performance, tossing 112 pitches just three days after he threw 122 in a 10-inning win over Central on Thursday.
“That’s one of the best pitching performances I’ve ever been around,” head coach Casey Klunder said. “On two days’ rest, we were hoping to get a couple innings out of him, maybe one time through the batting order, but he just kept getting outs and kept wanting the ball in his hands, I’m just super proud of him and our team for the gutsy performance we showed throughout the weekend.”
Alberhasky tossed a total of 13 2/3 innings across the two games. He gave up seven runs on 11 hits while racking up 14 strikeouts.
On the ride back to Waverly on Saturday night, Alberhasky told Klunder on the team’s bus that he wanted the ball on Sunday.
“It was going to be a question of how many innings I could go, and the coaches just trusted me to be honest with them, and I was,” Alberhasky told The Gazette in Cedar Rapids. “I felt great, and the defense was great behind me, and we were just able to keep putting up zeros. I was kind of just locked in, one batter at a time. Took it one pitch, one batter at a time.”
The Knights (26-15) secured the program’s 15th all-time berth into the NCAA Division III tournament. Pairings will be announced on Monday.