The Ankeny Christian Academy baseball players took the field on Tuesday with no fear of defending state champion Saint Ansgar.
The third-ranked Saints entered the Class 1A substate final with a team ERA of 1.37 and had yet to allow a run in postseason play. All three of their previous losses came to larger schools–two to Class 3A Clear Lake and one to Class 2A Roland-Story.
But the Eagles weren’t intimidated by Saint Ansgar’s impressive resume.
“We were confident,” said ACA senior Landon Curtis. “We knew who they had played, and we knew who we had played. We’ve seen plenty of good pitching. It was just another game for us.”
In a wild back-and-forth contest that featured 22 runs, three ties and one critical lead change, ACA pounded out 16 hits off four Saint Ansgar pitchers and then held off the Saints’ late rally to post a 12-10 victory at Roosevelt Field in Mason City.
It was the 10th consecutive win for the unranked Eagles (29-5), who advanced to next week’s state tournament for the first time in program history.
“It feels great,” said ACA senior Tyson Fincham. “We’ve been working hard ever since last season when we went to substate against Lynnville-Sully. We just knew ever since that game we were going to make it. If we just trust in God and glorify Him in everything we do, we’re going to make it here. And we did it.”
Fincham went 3-for-5, scored three runs and knocked in two more in ACA’s historic win. He led off the fourth inning with an infield hit, went to second on a bunt by Lucas Erickson, took third on a wild pitch and then raced home on a double steal to put the Eagles ahead for good, 5-4.
“We’ve been in a lot of close games, so we know how to close it out,” Fincham said. “Against Madrid (in the district semifinal) we were up by four going into the last inning and closed it out by one run. It’s just great to get the win.”
ACA relied on its aggressive base running to extend the lead over the next two innings, scoring three runs in the fifth and four more in the sixth. The Eagles stole nine bases in 10 attempts with Fincham, Tyler Davis and Lucas Herbel each swiping a pair of bases.
“I was worried about this game,” said ACA coach Konrad Christensen. “We had scouted them, and they have a great defense. But I prayed about it, and you’ve got to stay aggressive. That’s Ankeny Christian baseball. We even stole third a couple of times.”
Brody Butler hit a leadoff double in the fifth, stole third and scored on Herbel’s grounder. After a double by Conner Crosby, Fincham hit an RBI triple to left-center field and then came home on a wild pitch.
Fincham added an RBI single in the sixth and later stole third. He then scored on a bloop double by Erickson to give ACA a 12-4 lead.
The Saints (24-4) allowed more than five runs for only the second time this season.
“These guys are something special,” Christensen said. “They are so resilient, and they can hit against anybody. I’m just so glad to be there (at state).”
After threatening to end the game via the run rule, the Eagles eventually had to hang on for dear life. Saint Ansgar scored five runs with two outs in the sixth inning and closed the gap to 12-9 on a two-run single by Mason Beland before Erickson retired Jaxson Vroom–who represented the tying run–on a fly ball to right.
“I knew I could shut it down,” Erickson said. “Kudos to them–they put up a good fight. They were just hitting it to where we weren’t in that sixth inning. We knew in the seventh we just had to make some plays, and we were going to get (the win).”
Erickson (7-1) pitched five innings altogether, allowing four earned runs on nine hits. He walked two and had two strikeouts.
After Erickson tossed the first three innings, Curtis took the mound and hurled two hitless innings of relief before running into trouble in the sixth, when he hit the first two batters and then walked Anthony Schnable to start the Saint Ansgar rally.
Christensen then gave the ball back to Erickson–just like he did in last year’s district semifinal at Southeast Warren.
“Lucas has ice in his veins,” Christensen said. “That’s the guy you want on the mound (at the end), just like Southeast Warren last year. Bring him back!”
Erickson worked around a leadoff single in the seventh. The Saints added another run on a sacrifice fly by Connor Mullenbach before Porter Schweisow grounded out to Crosby at third to end the game.
“It’s definitely tough,” Erickson said of returning to the mound. “It changes your mentality–you’re just trying to throw strikes when you get back in. But having done it in the Southeast Warren game last year definitely helped because I had a little experience doing that.”
The Eagles handed Mullenbach (11-1) his first loss of the season. He took the mound in the third inning with a 2-1 lead, but promptly gave up three runs.
Curtis started a two-out rally with the first of his two doubles in the game.
“We knew that he was going mostly fastball,” Curtis said of Mullenbach, who sported an ERA of 0.42. “The first guy (Beland), obviously, was more off-speed. I’m more of a fastball guy, and that’s what I want (to see).”
Curtis stole third and scored on an errant throw to tie the game. After Davis reached on a bad-hop single, he stole second and went to third on another error.
Herbel and Crosby later hit back-to-back RBI singles to make it 4-2. The Saints then answered with two runs in the bottom of the frame, setting the tone for the rest of the game.
“We definitely expected them to put up a fight,” Erickson said. “They’re the defending state champion, they know how to get there, and they know what it takes to win. We definitely knew coming in that we were just going to have to fight through it until the final out.”
Crosby went 3-for-3 with two RBIs in the Eagles’ win. Butler went 3-for-4 and scored three times, while Curtis went 3-for-5.
“It feels great to make state,” Curtis said. “It’s the first time in school history, and I think we had it in us for sure.”
It just wasn’t the kind of game that Christensen expected.
“I was thinking it would be like 3-2 or 2-1,” he said. “What a blessing to have 16 hits. This team is insane. They have great pitching and great defense, and we had great really good defense and pitchers attacking the zone. We just had that one inning where we hit a few guys and the next thing you know, they’re right back on you. But the resiliency of this team is just amazing. They don’t get rattled.”
ACA earned the No. 6 seed for the Class 1A state tournament and will play third-seeded and fifth-ranked Mason City Newman (26-9) in the quarterfinals on Monday at 11 a.m. at Carroll. The Knights advanced with a 4-2 win over Gehlen Catholic of LeMars.
Newman closed out the regular season on July 1 with a 10-4 loss to Saint Ansgar.
“We know if we can beat the defending state champion that we can beat anyone,” Erickson said.
The winner of Monday’s game will play either second-seeded South Winneshiek (25-4) or No. 7 Burlington Notre Dame (22-7) in Wednesday’s semifinals at 4:30 p.m. The championship game is slated for noon on Friday.
