Shutout victory for Central baseball team
Central College
CEDAR RAPIDS — The Central College baseball shutout Loras College Friday 8-0 in the Iowa Conference tournament, the team’s sixth win over the Duhawks in eight days.
Prior to Friday’s win, Central (22-20) had opened the league tournament with a 9-1 win against Loras Thursday and had swept the Duhawks in a four-game series in Pella last weekend.
After struggling at the plate in their loss to Coe Thursday night, The Dutch found their groove again by pounding out 10 singles off four different pitchers.
“We had pretty good at-bats tonight, up and down the lineup,” coach Matt Schirm said. “We really emphasized swinging at the right pitches and letting the pitches out of the zone go. The guys did a good job with that tonight.”
Senior shortstop Kirby Coppess (Urbandale) set the table for the Dutch offense, going 2-for-3 with a season-high 4 RBIs. Schirm has been happy with the way that Coppess has adjusted to his role as Central’s leadoff hitter.
“Kirby was in the No. 3 hole for the first half of the season before we moved him to the leadoff spot and he’s really embraced it,” Schirm said. “I like him there and he likes to be there, because he gets to set the table and let guys drive him in. The most positive thing about him driving in runs from the leadoff spot is that it means the bottom-of-the-order guys are getting on base.”
Matt Schissel (junior, Milan, Ill., Alleman HS) went eight strong innings on the mound, striking out four and scattering three hits. After the Duhawks mounted a threat in the third, Schissel retired 10 straight batters in the 4th through 7th innings. Jake Voss (freshman, Ryan, West Delaware HS) closed out the game, throwing just the ninth inning.
“Matt was really good tonight,” Schirm said. “We debated on taking him out earlier to save his pitch count but ultimately decided not to. His pitch count got up pretty high after the eighth inning, so we brought Jake into close it and he had a 1-2-3 inning.”
Central faces the conference regular-season champs Wartburg at 10 a.m. tomorrow in an elimination game, after Wartburg fell to Coe Friday 6-3. If they can win the first game, the Dutch will need to beat the Kohawks twice to win the tournament crown and an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championships. Schirm knows that winning three consecutive games on the same day is a tough task, but he thinks his team can make it happen.
“We really need to perform well offensively, I think that’s a big key,” Schirm said. “We’ve played more games than Coe and Wartburg so we’ll be deeper into our pitching staff than them. We need to score a lot of runs and give our pitchers some comfort going out there that they don’t have to be perfect. Our offense needs to carry us tomorrow.”
A live video steam and statistics for all of Saturday’s games will be available on the Iowa Conference website at http://portal.stretchinternet.com/iiac/.
College baseball
at Cedar Rapids
Game 1
Loras 000 000 000—0 3 1
Central 222 020 00x—8 10 1
Schissel, Voss and Reuter/Frideres; Walsh, Spiess, Schreck, Petrosky and Jacque/Crabill. W—Schissel (3-3); L—Walsh (3-3). Central 22-20, Loras 21-22
