Newton baseball can’t hold early lead against Norwalk

Improving its at-bats against fastballs was the first step for the Newton baseball team.

The Cardinals will be even better if they can take another step against off-speed pitches.

Newton scored all three of its runs and had three of its four hits in the first inning against Norwalk on Friday, but the Warriors rallied for a 6-3 road win at H.A. Lynn Baseball Field.

“We’re getting to the point where we’re making contact with fastballs but not hard contact,” Newton head baseball coach Darin Tisdale said. “But we’re not striking out as much. That pitcher went to the curveball early in the count later and now we have to adjust to that.”

Norwalk’s starting pitcher was Garrett Geurink. He allowed three earned runs in the bottom of the first inning but surrendered just one other hit in the next five frames and improved to 2-2 on the season.

The Cardinals sent nine batters to the plate in the first but were retired in order in the second and third and put only one runner on base in each of the final four frames during the Little Hawkeye Conference contest.

“We had been getting blown away by fastballs all season,” Tisdale said. “We took some steps forward with that. Now we have to adjust and hang in there on the slider and curveball late in counts.

“You have to be able to hit to the opposite field. That’s something at the varsity level you have to be able to do.”

The Warriors (8-8, 7-4 in the conference) swept the Cardinals this summer and have won seven in a row in the series. But the last five matchups have ended 6-3, 7-4, 4-3, 3-1 and 1-0.

Cade Bauer singled to begin the bottom of the first inning and Creighton Andrew doubled to right field to put a pair of runners in scoring position.

Gabe Otto reached after Norwalk failed to retire Bauer in a run down between third and home and Dakota Winkleman brought in the first run with an RBI bases-loaded walk.

Derek Wermager was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to make it 2-0 and Mason Mendez’s RBI single pushed the advantage to three.

“We have a lot of guys with little varsity experience so we’ll continue to look at our small successes each night and point those out,” Tisdale said. “We’ll point out the flaws at practice and try to fix those then.”

Wermager’s RBI was his team-leading 12th this season, Winkleman drew his team-best eighth walk and Bauer has a team-high 11 runs and 21 total bases.

After going down in order in the second and third, Lane Rozendaal reached on an error with two outs in the fourth. Otto laced a one-out double in the fifth and Drew Bauer walked with two outs in the sixth.

Norwalk’s Kale Wadle pitched for the first time this season and got the save after getting the final three outs.

Otto walked in the seventh with two outs but a ground ball to third base ended the threat and the game.

Otto and Andrew have a team-high three doubles this summer, and Cade Bauer is batting a team-best .386.

Bauer (0-3) started on the mound and took the loss after allowing five runs — four earned — on six hits, two walks and one hit batter in 3 1/3 innings. He struck out one.

Andrew relieved Cade Bauer in the fourth and went the rest of the way. He surrendered one earned run in the fifth and allowed three hits, hit one batter and struck out five in 3 2/3 innings.

Norwalk got on the board with two runs in the second. Ryan Jones doubled and scored on Kingston Lamb’s RBI triple. Lamb scored on Wadle’s RBI sacrifice fly to left.

Jones hit a bases-clearing, three-run double in the third to put the Warriors in front 5-3. It came on a 2-2 count with two outs.

“That was huge,” Tisdale said about Jones’ second double. “(Cade Bauer) didn’t have his best stuff tonight, but he still competed and got us through four innings or so. Creighton had his good stuff tonight, which was good to see.

“Those two seniors are competing at a higher level and we’ll need that leadership on the mound. We need our seniors to come around on the mound because we’ll lean on them the rest of the season.”

Five of Norwalk’s nine hits went for extra bases and the Warriors walked twice and were hit by two pitches.

Jones totaled three hits, two doubles and four RBIs and Holtorf tallied three hits, one triple and two runs.

Geurink allowed four hits and struck out four in his six innings.

Notes: Senior Skyler Milheiser suffered a UCL injury in the seventh game of the season and has not returned. Tisdale said Milheiser has been taking swings left-handed for the past few weeks and hopes to return to a DH role later this season. He plans to play collegiately at Washburn University. “He will see a surgeon on Monday,” Tisdale said. “He’s going to tell him what he’s been doing and how it feels to hit left handed, and if the surgeon tells him it’s OK, and if his college coaches are OK with it, we might get him back.”