The Ankeny Centennial baseball team split a pair of games on Saturday in the Herkelman Invitational at Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids.
The Jaguars posted a 7-3 victory over Bettendorf before dropping a 2-1 decision to Iowa City High for their first loss of the season.
“I’m really happy with the way the guys are playing right now,” said Centennial coach Mark Hey, whose team is now 3-1. “I thought they competed extremely hard in both games, and I was super proud of that.”
Bettendorf (2-3) jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning before Centennial answered with four runs in the second. Trae Houser (1-0) earned the win, allowing just two hits over five innings while recording six strikeouts.
Will Nesler and Eli Starr each drove in two runs for the Jaguars. Alex Cory went 2-for-3 with a triple, and Nesler also tripled.
Nolan Powell went 2-for-3 and had one RBI. Brekken Miller also went 2-for-3 and scored a pair of runs.
“Hitting-wise, we’re squaring up some balls and some of them are dropping and some of them aren’t, but I’m happy with our at-bats,” Hey said.
There weren’t a lot of hits in the game against Iowa City High (3-2), which featured a brilliant pitchers’ duel between Starr and the Little Hawks’ Adam Bowman. Both hurlers took a shutout into the seventh inning–and Starr even had a no-hitter going.
Centennial took a 1-0 lead in the top of the seventh when Cade Newman singled with one out, stole second and then came home on a double by Cory. Bowman, who allowed just three hits and had four strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings, was then relieved by Paxton Bell–who retired the next two batters to limit the damage.
In the bottom of the frame, Iowa City High’s Christopher Davis walked and then stole second after Starr (0-1) recorded his 12th strikeout of the game. Henry Birt then hit a routine grounder to the left side that only turned into a game-tying, RBI single because Nesler, the shortstop, was covering the bag on a pickoff attempt.
“We weren’t going to let Eli go back out, but he was pitching so great,” Hey said. “The ball rolled through for a base hit and the run scored, and then there was an error on the throw in so the runner got to third.”
Birt was replaced by pinch-runner Matthew Kehres. Hey, meanwhile, took Starr out after 95 pitches and brought in Will Morris to try to get out of the jam.
Morris intentionally walked Crosby Newton and Ben Klitgaard to load the bases, setting up a force play at home. Catcher Beau Hall then drew another walk to force in the winning run.
“It was an exciting game,” Hey said. “We’ve gotten some really good pitching for the first four games of the year, and Eli was just outstanding. But we’ve faced some really tough pitchers, too. Those were two top pitchers that we saw on Saturday.”
Centennial will host a non-conference game against Des Moines Roosevelt (0-5) on Tuesday at 5 p.m. This will complete a doubleheader that began on May 18, when the Jaguars won a rain-shortened opener, 4-2, before the nightcap was postponed.