By Mark Schafer | The News-Review
SIGOURNEY – Sometimes a team needs a bit of a wakeup call.
That’s exactly what the No. 3 (class 1A) ranked team received last week. The wake-up call came in the middle of the week. Although Sigourney was able to win that game, and all four of their games last week, they were reminded they weren’t invincible.
“We went through a lot this week,” Sigourney head baseball coach Lee Crawford said. “As far as building the team and coming together as a team, I thought we really did that this week.”
On June 4, the Savages traveled to North Mahaska for a conference game against the Warhawks.
At first, everything seemed fine. Both teams scored a run in the first inning. The Savages added another run in the third. North Mahaska took the lead with two runs in the bottom of the third.
The Warhawks then added three more runs in the fourth and three in the fifth. Sigourney had also scored two runs in the top of the fifth.
Going into the sixth inning the perfect season of the Savages was in jeopardy. For the first time the Savages faced adversity as they trailed 9-4 at that point in the game.
Sigourney rallied and scored nine runs in the sixth inning to retake the lead. The shocked Warhawks only scored one run in the bottom of the sixth.
For good measure the Savages scored three runs in the seventh to help them capture the 16-10 win.
“You could tell that the 16-10 marathon win was really a wake-up call for some of the players,” Crawford said. “You could tell by how we finished the week what that game meant to us. We were able to up our defense because of that game. Overall, our kids really came ready to play this week.”
The Savages had six doubles in the win over North Mahaska. Lincoln Power had two doubles as did Landon Conrad. Brady Clark and Isaac Bruns also added a double each.
Cole Mckay and Bruns had two singles. Hunter Sellers also added a single in the win.
Bruns and Conrad each had three RBIs. Clark had two RBIs while McKay, Caden Clarahan and Ike Molyneux both had one RBI each.
Clark, Caden Clarahan and Solon Yates pitched the game for the Savages. Clark had six strike outs. Caden Clarahan recorded three strikeouts and Solon Yates had two strikeouts.
Collectively the Savages gave up nine hits, 10 runs, six earned.
After the marathon win the Savages picked up an 8-0 win over Davis County.
The Savages scored four runs in the third and fourth innings to grab that victory.
Lincoln Power had two doubles in the game. He also had two RBIs. Chase Clarahan had two RBIs as well. He hit two singles.
McKay and Clark also added two singles each.
Bruns, Power, Hunter Sellers and Ike Molyneux all had one single each.
Conrad picked up the win as the pitcher. He threw for six and a third innings. He struck out five batters, allowed three hits. Jordan Tremmel pitched for two thirds of an inning. He struck out two batters and allowed one hit.
Friday night the Savages won 16-0 over Colfax-Mingo. Sigourney didn’t allow a hit in that game as Sellers was able to pitch a strong game, that included 10 strikeouts.
Originally the plan wasn’t for Sellers to pitch the whole game.
“For him to come out and get 10 strikeouts, two walks and no hits was pretty good,” Crawford said. “We actually had plans to bring in other kids to the mound, but Sellers was under 65 pitches for the whole game. So he did pretty well and we didn’t need to pull him.”
The offense worked well and quickly too. Sigourney scored four runs in the first inning. In both the second and third innings they added six runs each.
McKay, Clark and Molyneux all had a double in the game. Bruns, Sellers, Yates and Molyneux all added one hit each.
McKay, Power, Sellers all had two RBIs. Bruns, Yates and Molyneux all had a RBI.
The week for the Savages started with a 13-3 win over Iowa Valley on June 2. That game was tied at one after one inning. Sigourney then scored another run in the second. They added six runs in the third, five in the fourth.
McKay had two home runs and six RBIs in that victory. Chase Clarahan and Lincoln Power also added home runs.
Sellers had two doubles and Caden Clarahan hit a double. Clark, Caden Clarahan and Power all had singles.
Chase Clarahan pitched for four and two thirds innings. He struck out nine batters and allowed just three hits and three unearned runs. Clark pitched for a third of an inning. He allowed one hit.
The Savages are 8-0 this season.
Photos by Mark Schafer
