Roller Coaster Week for Indians Baseball
Oskaloosa Indians
The Osky boys baseball team started the week on a great note by dismantling the Des Moines North baseball team. Although, what they found out quickly is that this season the Little Hawkeye Conference is going to be a tough one, as they traveled to Pella Wednesday night to take on the Little Dutch in the first conference game and finished the week off on Friday night playing the Knoxville Panthers in a varsity conference doubleheader.
Monday night the Indians could do little wrong as they beat the Des Moines North Polar Bears by the ten run rule in 5 innings. Junior-Colton Swanson was given the ball and he took to the mound like a man on a mission, as he almost single handedly held the Polar Bears in check, as he struck out 12 Polar Bears while allowing 3 hits and no walks. The Indians were led by Senior-Nick Rutledge as he hit a towering homerun to left center field and the rout was on.
Rutledge finished 2-4 with 2 RBI and 2 stolen bases. Swanson had a RBI triple, Senior-Travis Gile had two doubles and a RBI, and rounding out the hitting heroes for Osky were Juniors Mitchell Schaffner and Nate Van Veldhuizen with RBI singles. One hard luck Indian, so far this season, has been Junior-second baseman Logan Lundsford, who has been hitting the ball hard but not finding many hits, and the ball seems to find the defenders. He also had a hard earned single and RBI. Osky had 7 stolen bases on the game, which is part of Coach Gingrich’s game plan. “We like to be aggressive and put pressure on the other team, I thought we played well tonight and Colton pitched well.”
On Wednesday Night Osky traveled to Pella for the Little Hawkeye Conference opener, and it seemed like the Indians didn’t even make it off of the bus, as there was very little that went right. The Indians fell to the Little Dutch 6-0. Junior-TJ Boyle started the game and the Little Dutch were putting the bat on the ball as Boyle was pitching to connect, but the Defense didn’t get the memo as they committed 4 errors over the course of the game, and very easily could have been given several more. Osky, in the meantime, was stranding base runners left and right, as they just couldn’t find that timely hit to produce a run. Seniors Nick Rutledge and Travis Gile both had two hits, Junior-Mitchell Schaffner had a double and Sophomore-Joe Sterner had two hits.
Friday night brought the Knoxville Panthers to Oskaloosa to take on the Indians in LHC play. Osky continued to struggle, just as they had against the Little Dutch Wednesday. They just could not put hits together to produce runs. Senior-Jesse Van Dalen took to the mound for the Indians in game 1 and pitched well, he had 8 strikeouts while allowing just 5 hits and walking two. That was countered by Knoxville’s Senior-Bryce Zoote who baffled the Indians on just 5 hits coupled with a good pickoff move, costing the Indians. That, along with several base running errors for the Indians and they fell 2-0 to the Panthers.
In game 2 against the Panthers, Osky was looking to break their scoreless streak that was up to 14 innings. Osky was going to try to shut down Knoxville with Junior-Colton Swanson. Swanson succeeded in shutting down the Panthers in the top of the first. Osky went to work on offense in the bottom of the first. Rutledge scored on a ground out by Schaffner, getting the monkey off their back.
Swanson continued to cruise, all except for a mistake left over the plate on a Panther home run. With Knoxville leading 3-1, Osky put together a comeback helped out by walks and errors by the Panthers. That’s where Senior-Travis Gile came up with the go ahead single to put Osky up 4-3. Rutledge was the man of the hour as he worked with his arm and his feet and manufactured a run by coaxing a walk, stealing second then getting the Panther pitcher to balk him to third. That’s where the dramatics came into the game. With two outs, Rutledge took off for home and the pitcher froze, committed another balk and the Indians led 5-3. Rutledge allowed one Knoxville run, but then slammed the door on the guest team, with the game ending in a 5-4 victory.
Osky is now 4-3 on the season and 1-2 in the LCH. They are in action Monday night at Pella Christian in a JV/V double header.
