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The
Official Newspaper of Manchester and Delaware County, Iowa
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
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Hawks throttle Saints claim 3A title!
by Ken Boesenberg
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All year long the West Delaware boy’s baseball team has been considered the best of the best, a huge burden to have to shoulder through 40 plus games.
But shoulder it they did, oh there were three stumbles along the way…all by one run, but in the end they had no equal.
The Saints of Cedar Rapids Xavier took the final blow that the Hawks would throw in the 2007 season, a crushing 8-0 knockout punch to the defending Class 3A champions.
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At left, BJ Hermsen carved the competition like Christmas turkeys at the State Tournament. At right, Sophomore Danny Marshall scores one of the Hawks eight runs against Cedar Rapids Xavier. |
The huge victory left no doubt in anyone’s mind who the best team in Class 3A was.
The Hawks pounded out 10 hits to back junior BJ Hermsen’s two-hit shutout pitching performance.
For the three game state tournament series the Hawks banged out 40 hits, scored 30 runs and ran through the competition like a knife through hot butter.
The win was the 20th straight for the Hawks to end the season as they posted an overall record of 39-3.
As with their two opening round victories, 6-0 over Saydel and 13-3 over Knoxville, the Hawks scored in their first plate appearance.
Lucas Kafer reached on an error, advanced to second on Phil Kepplers ground out and came home to score on Zach McCool’s single.
In the bottom of the first pitcher, BJ Hermsen struck out the side on just 12 pitches to get the Hawks right back to the plate.
For the game Hermsen struck out six, walked none and allowed just two hits to a team that had entered the title game with some very impressive statistics.
The Saints were batting .385 as a team. They had outscored their first two opponents 25-0 and in their five tournament games to reach the finals had outscored their opponents 58-1.
So how dominating was the Hawks BJ Hermsen? The Saints were 2 for 23 with both of those hits coming in the sixth inning.
That was their only chance to score in the game, however, with runners on first and third they hit into an inning ending double play that went from Clarke Butler to Zach McCool to Garrett Linderwell.
The Hawks put their second run of the game on the board in the second inning when Nate Lahr led off with a towering double to left center field.
Garrett Linderwell made it 2-0 with an RBI ground out to short.
The Hawks broke the game open in the top of the fourth inning.
BJ Hermsen led off with a single. Following a Nate Lahr fly out to center field Justin Gideon drew a base on balls.
Garrett Linderwell ripped a single to score courtesy runner Brad McDonald and Justin Gideon.
Sophomore Danny Marshall followed with a double off the left field wall that missed being a home run by inches to drive in Linderwell.
Phil Keppler’s single scored Marshall to give the Hawks a huge 6-0 lead.
Justin Gideon’s 400-foot plus home run in the top of the fifth inning upped the Hawk lead to 7-0 and drove the final nail in the Xavier coffin.
All that was left was to play solid defense behind the most dominate pitcher in the class. And that is just what the Hawks did.
For the game Phil Keppler and Danny Marshall had two hits each. Lucas Kafer, Zach McCool, BJ Hermsen, Nate Lahr, Justin Gideon and Garrett Linderwell each had one hit for the Hawks.
The week started out on a great note for the Hawks as they faced Saydel in a first round game on Tuesday afternoon.
With Hermsen on the mound the Hawks scored 4 runs in the bottom of the first inning and cruised to a 6-0 victory.
BJ tossed a no-hitter and faced just one batter over the minimum of 21 for a seven inning game.
The only Saydel player to reach base was in the top of the third inning on a Hawk error.
Five of the first six batters for the Hawks in the bottom of the first inning got hits, jump starting West Delaware to a 4-0 lead.
Lucas Kafer led off with a single, Phil Keppler tripled, and Zach McCool singled. A double by Nate Lahr and a single by Justin Gideon finished off the four run inning.
Justin Gideon drove in courtesy runner Ryan Hauser in the third inning with a single to give the Hawks a 5-0 lead.
The final Hawk run of the game came on a towering home run down the left field line by BJ Hermsen in the bottom of the fifth inning.
For the game the Hawks had 11 hits. Lucas Kafer and Justin Gideon each had three hits, Phil Keppler had two and Zach McCool, BJ Hermsen, and Nate Lahr each had one.
The win set up a date with second seeded Knoxville on Friday.
The Hawks came out swinging as they roughed up a pair of Knoxville pitchers for 19 hits in route to a resounding 13-3 win.
BJ Hermsen’s two-run double in the first gave the Hawks an early 2-0 lead. BJ was then driven home by Justin Gideon on an RBI single.
Gideon made the score 4-0 when he drove in Zach McCool with double in the top of the third.
That would be all the run support winning pitcher, Phil Keppler would need. Keppler tossed four and a third innings to pick up the win. He walked four and struck out five.
Garrett Linderwell threw the final two and two thirds innings, giving up one run on three hits. He walked three and struck out three.
Senior Chris Harbaugh was back in the line up after having suffered a dislocated shoulder in the district final game against Western Dubuque in Cascade. He delivered with a single to start out the fourth inning.
That was the first of four straight Hawk hits that led to four runs and an 8-0 lead.
A lone run in the fifth and a four run outburst in the seventh sent second seeded Knoxville packing.
Senior Nate Lahr put the exclamation point on the seventh inning scoring with a towering home run to left center field into the teeth of a stiff breeze.
Knoxville loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh but Linderwell recorded a strike out for the second out of the inning and got Knoxville’s last batter to ground out to second base to end the game.
The win set up the game that everyone had been waiting for, West Delaware vs. Cedar Rapids Xavier on Saturday for all the marbles in Class 3A.
Getting hits against Knoxville were Zach McCool 4, Lucas Kafer 3, Phil Keppler 3, Justin Gideon 3, Garrett Linderwell 2, Nathan King, Chris Harbaugh, Nate Lahr and BJ Hermsen each one hit. |
Murphy’s perfect game sends Hawks to Ft. Dodge
by Ken Boesenberg |
With all the action that took place during the last week it seems like an eternity since the West Delaware girls softball team defeated Dubuque Wahlert 1-0 on Monday night, July 23 to advance to the Girls State Softball Tournament in Ft. Dodge this week.
The Hawks were the home team against the Golden Eagles and put the games only run on the board in the bottom of the first inning.
Ashley Hood reached on an error by the Wahlert third baseman. Katlyn Heiserman sacrificed Hood to second.
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At left, There were plenty of smiles to go around last Monday night when the Hawks defeated Dubuque Wahlert 1-0 to advance to the 2007 Girls State Softball Tournament in Ft. Dodge this week. At right, Jenny Hood (left) and sister Ashley Hood (right) do a good job of communicating as Jenny makes the catch of this fly ball during early action against Dubuque Wahlert last Monday night. |
Following a Katie Wessels fly out to the Wahlert shortstop, Sara Hermsen struck out swinging.
However, the catcher missed the ball and threw wildly to first in an attempt to record the out there.
Ashley Hood was running all the way and scored from second to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead.
At the time, little did anyone know that that run would be all that Hawk hurler Katie Murphy would need.
Murphy hurled a perfect game, facing the minimum of 21 batters in posting the victory.
She recorded 8 strike outs, did not walk a batter and was in total control from the first pitch to the final out.
West Delaware had runners on base in every inning except the third.
The Hawks had just three hits in the game, one in the second by Haleigh Klein; a single in the fifth by Lindsey McDowell and a single in the sixth by catcher Sara Hermsen.
The game took just over an hour to complete as there were only five base runners in the game.
This week in Ft. Dodge the Hawks will play three games as the girls union plays to a true eighth place.
In the top half of the Class 3A bracket Cedar Rapids Xavier (41-10) takes on ADM (32-7) at 6:00 p.m. Wednesday. Game two in the top bracket has Chariton (24-15) playing Harlan (41-4). The winners will meet on Friday at 6:00 p.m. in a semi-final contest.
In the lower bracket the Hawks (42-8) will face Davenport Assumption (30-18) at 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday in one game while Saydel (24-13) takes on Storm Lake (36-7) in the final Class 3A contest starting at 8:00 p.m. The winners will meet on Friday at 6:30 p.m. while the losers will play on Thursday at 1:00 p.m.
The championship game in 3A is slated for Saturday at 3:00 p.m. |
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Manchester Press 2005-2006
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