(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
The Ankeny and Ankeny Centennial baseball teams were locked in a close battle in their first meeting of the season.
Then the Jaguars just pulled away at the end.
Centennial scored eight combined runs in the fourth and fifth innings to bust things open as the Jaguars secured an 11-4 victory over the visiting Hawks in a CIML Conference game on Monday.
“I thought we had good discipline at the plate, and we had some real good at-bats,” said Centennial coach Mark Hey. “We worked their pitchers very deep in the count, and I think we ran pitch counts up on their pitchers.”
“It’s kind of how things have been going lately,” said Ankeny coach Joe Balvanz, whose team suffered its sixth straight loss. “We’ve been putting together four, five, six innings and it kind of unravels on us at the end.”
Centennial’s Brekken Miller had a big night at the plate. He went 3-for-4 and had three of the team’s eight RBIs.
Miller got things rolling early for the Jaguars.
Back-to-back walks for seniors Eli Starr and Will Morris led to Miller driving a ball just past Ankeny right fielder Ryan Buffington for a two-run triple and a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning.
“(Miller) is a real special player on the mound, behind the plate and at the bat,” Hey said of his sophomore slugger, who is batting .423 with a team-high 11 hits early in the season. “He works and he earns everything he does. What nobody sees is the hours he’s putting in extra here at the cage and doing things.”
The Hawks found themselves in a spot where they tied things up, but just weren’t able to get over the hump and hold onto the lead.
With the bases loaded in the top of the third, Ankeny junior Ace Parton managed to beat a throw to first to drive in a run before Buffington drew a full-count walk to tie the game up at 2-2.
Jaguar pitcher Colton Arndt was able to get out of the jam by striking Kyle Clevidence out on a full count.
Centennial regained the lead in the bottom of the inning after junior Will Nesler drew a walk and scored off a pair of throwing errors.
Ankeny tied the game up for a second time when freshman Drake Allison drew a bases-loaded walk on another full count in the top of the fourth, but a 5-2-3 double play and the first of seven strikeouts for Centennial reliever Connor Williams stopped the Hawks from adding any more runs.
“We left a lot of guys on base, in scoring position and we had the bases loaded with no outs and I don’t think we scored,” Balvanz said. “We have got to do a better job. Our offense has been better in those situations.”
The Jaguars doubled their run total in the bottom of the inning with a run scoring off a passed ball and senior Trae Houser recording an RBI single before also ultimately scoring on a passed ball.
Things swayed heavily into Centennial’s favor in the bottom of the fifth with four straight RBIs from Miller, Cade Newman and Jacob Battershell.
Miller and Newman hit back-to-back RBI singles and Battershell drove them both in on a near-three run homer, but had the ball bounce off the top of the fence for a two-run double.
The Jaguars drew two straight two-out walks from Houser and Garrett Stevens to line up Nesler for a two-out RBI single to extend the lead up to 11-3.
“When you get into bullpens, it’s always kind of a hidden goal that you don’t let a pitcher throw a complete game,” Hey said. “I thought we were very patient and disciplined, and I was very happy with that.”
Ankeny was able to get one run back, but not nearly enough to dig itself out of the hole.
Easton Lowe was a bright spot for the Hawks, going 3-for-4 with three of the team’s seven hits. Lowe led off the top of the sixth with a triple and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Max Wade.
“(Lowe and Parton) are going to have to lead us and the other guys are going to have to buy in, get shorter to the pitch, work on hitting the ball up the middle of the field and putting it on a line,” Balvanz.
Williams (2-0) picked up the win for the Jaguars, allowing just one earned run on two hits over the final four innings. Arndt had four strikeouts in three-plus innings.
Ankeny’s rotation of starter Hunter Minner, Brayden Kern, Jackson Molloy and Liam Howard combined for eight strikeouts but also allowed nine walks and 10 earned runs. Minner (1-3) took the loss.
Centennial improved to 2-2 in the conference and 6-3 overall. The Hawks’ records dropped to 0-4 and 1-10.
The Jaguars will play a CIML doubleheader on Wednesday at Southeast Polk (9-1) while Ankeny will travel to Urbandale for a conference twinbill against the J-Hawks (10-4).
