Newton baseball loses twice in LHC action to Oskaloosa

OSKALOOSA — Clutch hits don’t come easy for Newton High’s Cardinals neither do extra-base hits. Newton’s baseball team has 152 singles in 24 games and eight extra-base hits — seven doubles and one triple.

Newton connected for 12 hits in a 7-5 loss of a nightcap game Wednesday against host Oskaloosa. It had five hits in the opener which the Cardinals lost 5-1 to the Indians.

“We hit the ball and pitched well enough to win the second game. We had a couple of those key hits in the game, scoring runs. The problem was we shot ourselves in the foot with several big errors,” Newton head coach Dustin Brisel said.

All 17 hits in Wednesday’s Little Hawkeye Conference doubleheader were base hits. Oskaloosa had 10 hits in the second game and three of those were doubles.

“We’re missing opportunities with people on base,” Brisel said. “We have to play more consistently on defense. We talk about making the routine plays. We played a clean game in the first one, but we had four errors in the second game, which cost us runs.”

Logan Wolfe started on the mound in the opener. He worked 4 2/3 innings and was charged with five runs on seven hits and five walks. He had one strikeout. Ben Leal pitched 1 1/3 innings.

Newton’s single run came in the second and tied the game at 1-1. Ryan Barr singled and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Wolfe. Blayden Rhone drove in the run on a single.

Oskaloosa had single runs in the first, second and third innings. The Indians added two more in the fifth frame.

The other hits for Newton in the game were by Trevor Ergenbright, Tyler Stanton and Trey Vanderlaan.

Oskaloosa jumped out to a 3-0 lead with three runs in the second inning of the second game. Newton produced a run on an Ergenbright single and a two-out error on a ball hit by Leal in the third inning.

The Cardinals tied the game at 3-all when they plated two runs in the fourth. Barr singled followed by a one-out base hit by Keith Steinbach. Cole Cazett was hit by a pitch to load the bases and Ergenbright drove in the two runs on a single.

Newton pulled ahead 4-3 in the top of the fifth inning. Jaron Roush hit a fly ball with one out and the bases loaded to drive in the run, but Newton couldn’t get any more runs across the plate.

The Indians manufactured three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning, going up 6-4. Ergenbright, who reached on a fielder’s choice, stole second and score for Newton on a base hit by Leal in the sixth to make it a one-run game.

Oskaloosa answered with a run of its own in the sixth. Newton put the tying run on with two gone in the top of the seventh with a base hit by Roush. Unfortunately, the Indians coaxed a pop-up out of Steinbach to first base ending the game.

Ergenbright had three singles in four at-bats for Newton. Leal and Barr each had two singles. Hitting a single each were Vanderlaan, Ty Arguello, Roush, Steinbach and Cazett.

Newton fell to 3-11 in LHC play and 5-19 overall. Oskaloosa, which is second in the conference standings, improved to 16-8 overall and 11-4 in the LHC.

The Cardinals play at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Des Moines Lincoln. They have a 7:30 p.m. LHC game on Friday at Pella.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
641-792-3121 ext. 6535
or jsheets@newtondailynews.com