Make that nine in a row for Spartan baseball.
Grundy Center may have seen their streak broken with a loss to East Marshall on Monday night, but the Spartans put themselves in a strong position to win the NICL West with a 6-0 win over South Hardin last week.
“We’re feeling good,” junior Tate Jirovsky said. “I think our great defense stay in lock in on defense has really been what we relied on and keeping us in these ballgames.”
Thursday’s third and final meeting of the regular season between these two NICL West teams was a defensive battle, even as the Spartans hung up two runs with junior Colin Gordon driving in sophomore Ryder Slifer with a single. Junior Tanner Laube was able to sneak a run in past a tough Tigers defense led by senior Cole Williamson on the mound.
“Williamson has given us troubles in the past,” coach Patrick Brown II said. “They wanted nothing more than to take one from us after playing us last week. They made it tough to score again.”
The bats found a couple gaps as Slifer scored Jirovsky, sophomore Brody Zinkula off a fielders choice, sophomore Ryker Thoren an RBI single for Slifer and freshman Brayden Davie tacked one final run off an error.
“Unfortunately, we could execute offensively tonight like we wanted to because I felt we could have scored more,” Brown said. “We settled in and got in the runs we could. It was a tough night.”
Jirovsky threw for six innings and the win, striking out seven Tigers while allowing four hits and two walks. The junior was the winning pitcher for the Spartans in their first win over the Tigers.
“He was effective for us against South Hardin once again,” Brown said. “He was effective and anytime you get a guy that goes out there and can throw for six innings and keep you in a ballgame, it's a wonderful job.”
The Spartans (9-2) extended their streak to nine game before losing a nightcap against East Marshall 4-3 on Monday. They hosted Oelwein on Tuesday. Grundy Center will travel to Dike-New Hartford on Wednesday and host Hampton-Dumont-CAL on Thursday.
“We've got a lot of good opponents ahead of us coming up so we're gonna stay locked in and keep playing the baseball we've been playing,” Jirovsky said. “‘Gritty Beats Pretty’ is our motto and we want to stay with that because that’s how we’ve beaten our opponents.”
