Dutch stun No. 18 Buena Vista again in baseball split
Central College
PELLA —Putting an exclamation point on a surprising weekend, the Central College baseball team pounded out 13 hits to surge past No. 18 Buena Vista 8-6 Saturday after dropping the opener 6-1, taking three of four games in the series.
After a sluggish offensive performance in the first game, the Dutch (11-14, 7-7 conference) woke up in a big way for game two. Jumping all over the Buena Vista (17-8, 7-7 conference) pitching staff, Central bats connected on 13 hits and were aided by five Beaver errors.
“We responded well in the second game,” coach Matt Schirm said. “The guys fought really hard all weekend like they have all season long. I was extremely happy with that.”
Zach Zylstra (senior, Pella Christian) continued his stellar weekend with a 2-for-5 performance in game two, including an RBI single in the sixth inning that scored Mason Ellis (freshman, Fairfield) for the game-tying run. The leftfielder went 8-for-15 with three doubles, one RBI and scored eight runs in four games this weekend.
“He’s been arguably our most consistent hitter all year,” Schirm said. “I anticipated that coming into the season and he’s really produced, this weekend was no different. He’s really come up with big hits for us. The thing that he’s done for us more than anybody else is having some timely hits. He’s doing a great job and he’s a great leader for us.”
Picking up the win in game two was Mark Schroeder (junior, Chariton). Schroeder came on in relief of starter Alex Dornacker (freshman, West Des Moines, Valley HS) to register the final 10 outs of the game, only allowing one run on two hits.
“Mark did a great job,” Schirm said. “He’s been one of our best relief guys all year and he did it again today. He does a good job of mixing his pitches and locating most of the time. He really battles out there.”
Designated hitter Adam Lindell (junior, Denver, Colo. Arapahoe HS) provided the offense for Central in game one’s 6-1 loss, hitting a two-out home run in the bottom of the seventh inning.
The three wins over the Beavers evens Central’s conference record at 7-7 at the midway point of the conference season. Schirm is optimistic that the series victory over the unanimous conference preseason favorites will provide a boost for his team.
“It’s huge at this part of the season,” he said. “We struggled getting all of three phases of the game put together early in the season, but we did that this weekend for the most part. We pitched pretty well, played defense pretty well and hit pretty well overall this weekend. This really puts us back into the conference race. I hope that it helps our confidence going forward.”
Central heads back out on the road for four games at Coe next weekend, starting with a doubleheader Friday starting 1 p.m.
College baseball
at Pella
Game 1
Buena Vista 000 042 0—6 10 0
Central 000 000 1—1 2 2
Bjorkgren and Bra. Wessels; Schissel and Frideres. W—Bjorkgren (4-0); L—Schissel (2-2). Central 10-14 (6-7), Buena Vista 17-7 (7-6)
Game 2
Buena Vista 001 022 001—6 8 5
Central 021 003 02x—8 13 2
Lewis, Grigsby, Hazel, Hadaway and Harms/Bra. Wessels; Dornacker, Schroeder and Frideres. W—Schroeder (1-0); L—Grigsby (0-1). Central 11-14 (7-7), Buena Vista 17-8 (7-7)
