Playoff Fever: Southeast Iowa Baseball Highlights

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Yes, we did. We saw a couple of quick ballgames, and we saw a couple of round guy teams, which are also a couple of Southeast Iowa Union teams go on. New London over Pekin in a union battle, and Keota over Danville. Now, Keota Danville was a 4-1 game. Let me wrap my brain back to New London. I think it was a 3-0 game. Yep. So, eight runs scored in two games and that's probably a big reason why they were, why it's 9-30 and I'm halfway home. Yeah, there were fast games for certain. You know what? I'll tell you what. Over the last couple weeks, I've seen nothing but good pitching. It seems like the pitchers are kind of You know, they probably pitched 10 games already this year, and they're kind of strong, and they're in the groove. And they were grooving tonight, both teams.

Let's start with a player I call the express, Nolan Glick. He's a heck of a good pitcher. And he just had one inning where there was a strikeout and a pass ball, and he gets to first base. And then there's a fly ball to right field. It was a pretty tough play, but it could have been made, maybe. But that gets away, and then there's a ground ball that goes under the third base. Well, you make three mistakes in one inning. You force the pitcher to get six outs in that inning, and I think that was the only thing that was a problem there at all. But they just couldn't get any runs on the board because of the pitcher from New London, which was something Bailey.

Yeah, Gavin Mickey Bailey. Yeah, Mickey Bailey. Still their job of pitching that night. They did a great job. They did just enough to win. They got a little bit of a lead. I think they got all three runs in one inning and then just kind of held pace. Sorry to see the Packwood Peacock Panthers lose. That'd be done with this season. We followed them so much. But that's how it goes in the playoffs, ain't it?

Yeah, it is. And, yeah, good pitching. And all the offense really came from one guy as far as runs Because, you know, with two outs, New London's Memphis Watson hit a two-run double that just got him. It was just perfectly placed in between the left fielder and center fielder for Pekin. That scored two runs. And then he scored on a wild pitch, I believe. And so there are no other RBIs besides that one hit, that one-two RBI double for New London. And, you know, they just came up with a, you know, it was a good spot. lot they you know they had their top of the lineup up and they they scored on that and i mean pecan had a couple points i remember pecan had a first and second with nobody out situation uh with some pretty good hitters up and they all made pretty good contact but uh new london's defense played really well behind gavin mickey bailey and then mickey bailey pitched about as well as you can ask a high school or two and especially in a game where i thought you know there'd be a little more offense between the two teams.

But, yeah, so New London moves on. They'll play Notre Dame. Notre Dame's got them the last two times, but that's kind of a little super south rivalry. So they'll probably throw the kitchen sink at them and see if they can come up with a big upset. Yeah, I didn't see Brandon Ritchie, who was a player for New London. I don't know what happened or why he wasn't. He hasn't been to the box for us last year. I believe he's out with an injury. Oh, well, that's too bad, because he's one of their better players. Yeah, that's a good player for them. They got a nice little win. I don't know if facing New London is a reward. But, you know, a nice season. You can hang your hat on a playoff win there. You can go out and shop the world and beat New London. I mean, there's been teams playing pretty close with them this year. Yeah. But they're a juggernaut. They have a whole lot. And Coach Chipper is as tough in the playoffs, I can tell you that much.

That's the first game. The second game, we got the Keota Eagles with a 4-1 victory over Danville. It was nip and tuck for a long time. Nothing, nothing. And Keota just kind of started scoring a run here and there for the third and fourth inning and held on to win the game. Paul Kindred with a great pitching performance and a nice relief by Blake Baker. Some good hitting from two-hit Tanner Waterhouse. Brendan McGuire was a key hit. Chase Aaron was a key sacrifice fly to right field to score a run. A total team win. Pretty good fielding all the way around. I've been seeing a good fielding. You know, we just seem like we're seeing some strikeouts, but it seems like less than the beginning of the season. There's a lot less errors. Yeah, a lot.

So, I believe that Keota will play Moravia. Yes. Yes, Moravia, I think, pitched a combined no-hitter against Moulton Udell. Moulton Udell won three or four games, so they probably saved a lot of pitching. But yeah, Kiyota used the two guys. So I talked to Cole Kindred after the game, and he made a pretty good point that they had played it like a week, and maybe the little break in playing right before a tournament game might have been one of the reasons that there weren't a lot of scoring today. But Kiyota took advantage when they had runners in scoring position, you know, because they didn't get too many hits off of those dandle arms. I thought Keota was going to, you know, come and kind of rock the place with their offense. But Keota really never felt like they were in any trouble besides the very last inning where Baker had guys second and third on him with two outs, and then he did have a 3-1 count on a kid, but he struck the kid out to finish it off. Otherwise, that might have gotten a little scary.

Yeah, it was a little hairy right there at the end. You know, you got rooms at second and third and a full count on the batter, But he come through, he's been clutch all year. You're going to be writing that kid Blake Baker's name down for a long time. Yeah, yeah, that is true. When you have this big of an impact as an eighth grader, you know, he's going to be, geez, I'll be almost 40 years old by the time he graduates high school. So it'll be a nice little five years for Keota baseball. That's the great thing about baseball and softball in Iowa is you get that extra year if you're good enough. Not a lot of 8-pointers are good enough in baseball, but he is. He certainly is.

Well, I do know that Sigourney won like 18-0 in four innings. Yeah, I know a little bit of that. I turned it when it was 16-0. Yeah, there was no doubt about that. But there was another game in that bracket. Someone sent me the score, but I don't remember. remember let me see if i can't look that up yeah well i can tell you a couple that i know i know that mediapolis is currently against i'm on west burlington i think six nothing now, I think they might be a go-hitter. That's a go-hitter going in that one for a medium pitching staff. I know that Cedarville was 2-0 up centrally early, but that was, as I said, that was early. And then Lone Tree beat Highland 9-3 in the game before that. There's your upset right there. Let's talk a little bit about that. With the Lone Tree-Highland game? Yeah, how about that? Lone Tree getting a win over Highland. That was, it's been a long time since Lone Tree had beaten Highland in baseball. So that was a surprising one. And that one, sorry, that one wasn't in Central. That was over in Sigourney. That was the game that leads into the Sigourney game. Okay, that was the one. I couldn't find the score. Yeah, Lone Tree and Sigourney. Lone Tree goes to Sigourney and gets a win over Highland. So will they play Sigourney then, or who will they play? Yeah, I believe they play Sigourney now. If I got the brackets right in my brain. So that's Tuesday night. Yes. Tuesday night in Sigourney. Yeah, Tuesday night in Sigourney, and then New London will play Notre Dame. Kyoto will play Moravia. And then I know Cardinal beat Van Buren County in 2A. That was an 8-2 win, I believe, for Cardinal. That was the one that was at Central League before that game that's going on right now. And then I thought I had another one, but I'm having trouble. I don't know. I assume the Hillcrest Academy moved on today, but I haven't seen a score on that. Hillcrest Academy? They're playing BGM, I think. Well, BGM got some wins. They're no slouch or nothing.

Oh, wait. Maybe I'm wrong then. Maybe they're playing somebody else. I don't remember. But let me see. Try and check the Chasing Eye scoreboard and see if I can find anything. You got any of the scores at all? Well, I can tell you that the Super Conference North, now that I think about it, Hillcrest is the last of the top four teams now because Highland Pekin and Highland Pekin and somebody else all lost. Who the heck was the third team that I was thinking of? So Hillcrest might be carrying the Torch for the North for a little bit. I only peeked in and I don't remember. Who did not? Do you know who? Let me see. Wapolo, they're not one of your schools. No. Winfield, you mean Columbus played tonight? Columbus beat. They did beat Louisa Muscatine 4-1. That was a score I got from Jeff Mills. I don't know what's in the second game. West Burlington, Mediapolis, I think, wasn't it? Oh, okay. Okay, so the West Burlington-Mediapolis game was at the same place as the Winfield game? Yeah, yeah. And I know that Mediapolis was up 6-0 against West Burlington on the 6th, I believe.

Okay. They have been playing lights out, that West Burlington team down the stretch. But the Mediapolis is good. And I mean really good. And they might be a real dangerous team going down. They got some good pitching. That Lutenskid's a good one. I know that. Yeah, they're one of the more dangerous teams in that class. So I know West Burlington, I think, with a walk, had a runner or two on in the fifth. And then there was a runner thrown out of home, maybe, and there was a little controversy. But it sounds like Mediapple's pitching is doing pretty well tonight. I think it's a combined – I don't know who is pitching for them, but I know it's not just one kid. I think it's a combined effort.

Well, all the games are still scattered out. I didn't hear anything on Wilton. I don't know how to find the score for them. Yeah, I think they should keep them pretty updated. For anyone listening, if you go to RCD Bound, and then Bracket, then they have the Brackets out, and they do a pretty good job now. They're getting better and better every year at updating those, even mid-game sometimes. Usually in the tournament, the final scores at least are up pretty quick. But, yeah, I'm interested to see what happens in that Citroën-Cityville game. Because that one, I think, had a little bit of a later start, it sounded like.

Yeah, when the first game got done early, I'm not sure the second game didn't start early, or at least right on the button. And then we've been seeing these consistently two-hour-plus games. Yeah. And then we get an hour-and-18-minute game, and then another hour-and-30-minute game or something in that vicinity. Yeah, I sat in my car and flipped on all the radio stations and all their games are still going. There was a bunch of high school games still going on. We were definitely the first out among the doubleheaders.

Yeah, we picked the right one to go to, that's for sure. Yeah, we did. It was not like we didn't get treated to a couple good ball games tonight. Yeah. I just didn't hardly ever sit down to a game that wasn't. Went to one game that was a mercy rule and everything else was a tight game all year long. It was a pretty – actually, I thought the baseball was played very well this year. And I thought by the end of the year, the level of play was tremendous, you know. You weren't seeing hardly any walks. You weren't seeing hardly any errors. You know what I mean? You were seeing a lot of good contact. And the fielding was so good. It was a great year to watch baseball in southeast Iowa for sure, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was. And, you know, in high school, you know, So good teams are the ones that put a defense and, you know, and throw strikes. It's not like, you know, teams are hitting homers all the time or anything like that. It's that fundamentally right there. If you can play like Keota and New London did tonight where they pitched well, they didn't walk a lot, and there weren't very many mistakes defensively, that is really the big skill gap in baseball teams. So that's the key. It's just sometimes the more intimidating teams will intimidate you and do a few mistakes. So hopefully that doesn't happen as they play the higher-seeded teams here in the next round.

Well, Albia beat Central Decatur. That's a score I could find. Where was Hunter Biden? I don't know where Hunter Biden was, but I know Hunter Mullen was in. He was at the Central League doubleheader. So we have Cardinal and Van Buren, obviously. And then I think his cousin plays for Central League, so he played for the Centerville Central League game. So I think he might be sitting there right now. I could probably get to that if I wanted to, too, but I'll go home and stand with you.

All right. Well, I don't have a lot of other scores for you, but we will. All I can say is the 3A starts Friday. Oh, here's one. Here's BGM, 17-7 record. They beat Wapolo 5-3. I'm still really proud to play BGM. I'm trying to remember who Bill Trey's playing. See, where's Wapolo? Wapolo got peaking the other day and stood up pretty good to BGM there. Yeah, yeah. The Super North teams were all pretty balanced this year. I don't know if Crest won it, I think, with two or three conference losses, but there were a lot of – it was a pretty – probably as balanced as the North has been baseball-wise in quite some time. It's even with the bottom teams, you know. They kind of – they run a lot of, you know, fuck-kicking. kids.

I got a score of Meepo 5-0 West Burlington, nothing in the fifth, end of the fifth. But you said it was, let's see. Yeah, I heard it in the sixth. I was listening to the radio. 8-0, 8-0. They win, 8-0. Perfect game, or near perfect game. Lance Lutens. Boy, I tell you, have you seen him pitch? I have not. I haven't even seen Meepo this year, I don't think. Pretty dang good. Pretty dang good. Well, we got the 4-1 L&M. That's pretty much the scores that I can come up with.

Yeah. Do you got any other parting shots or anything to plug or anything? No. I mean, obviously, yeah, we'll have all the scores and stories. Even games that we weren't at will at least be in roundups and stuff for the for the playoff online Sunday or Monday. And then in the new, the Tuesday South East Iowa union, we come out on Tuesdays, Thursdays with the actual paper itself. We are without a producer for right now because our, our show producer moved on to bigger and brighter things, but South East Iowa union sports talk will be coming back hopefully this week. And then news break on the South East Iowa live Facebook and YouTube. And we try and cover anything and everything and, in both the paper and the newspaper, and then follow us at unionsportpage on Twitter, whatever you want to call it, and tweet us some scores. Once the games get dwindled down, we'll be at them all, but early in these rounds, we have a couple games that we're not physically at between the two of us, so tweet us the scores if you can.

Well, Round Guy Radio went live. I've got the games, some of the AI. They didn't do AI for the first part of the new London game, but I did it for the last part of the game. I wound up in two factions. You know, you're going to see the beginning of the game and the end of the game on two different episodes because I can only go so much time. They almost did the game fast enough we could do it. Well, Andy, thank you so much. Good seeing you tonight. And thank you for helping our listeners with what scores we could bring them. Have a good night. and don't tell Hunter Mueller about the Hunter Biden Floridian Swift there. Yeah, I'll try not to. All right. See you later.