Cyclones split doubleheader with Rams on road

Game 1: HCHS 5, Glenwood 3
Cyclone Junior Brock Lemrick came out of the bullpen in game one of a doubleheader on the road and pitched 5.2 innings striking out five batters and giving up just two hits after Franz Reisz had some early struggles lasting just 1.1 innings.
“Brock came in and just absolutely dominated the game,” said Cyclones Head Coach Heath Stein. “He was super efficient. We’re going to look forward to Brock getting the ball in big games and going at them.”
The Cyclones got their bats going right away with a run in the top of the 1st inning, but the Rams responded right away with three runs in the bottom of the 1st.
The Cyclones tied the game up with two runs in the top of the 3rd inning with contributions on the night from Cade Sears who had three of the eight Cyclone hits. Quinn Koesters and Stephen Leinen each knocked in two runs, while Hayden Soma knocked in one run.
Ryan Turner got the ball for the Rams going all seven innings, striking out five Cyclones, but the Cyclones won the game 5-3.
Game 2: HCHS 6, Glenwood 7
The Cyclones came out of the gate aggressively on offense scoring five runs in the first two innings.
“We swung the bats pretty well all night really,” Stein said. “We executed while playing a little bit of small ball. We still need to keep getting better at that, but we put pressure on them early on.”
Cael Goshorn got the ball to start the night for the Cyclones going three innings, giving up five runs on six hits, while walking five Rams hitters, but Stein was still pleased with his outing.
“Cael’s start wasn’t bad,” he said. “They have Kayden Anderson in their lineup and our goal was to keep guys off base in front of him and the second time around, we weren’t able to do that and he ended up hitting a grand slam to get them back in the ballgame.”
Caleb Schleis took over following Goshorn, pitching three innings and gave up two runs on one hit and struck out three batters.
“Caleb came in and did an outstanding job,” Stein added. “He kept us right in the ballgame. A couple of plays we didn’t make later on in the game, but outstanding job by Caleb coming in.”
On offense, the Cyclones got contributions from Hayden Soma, Stephen Leinen and Matthew Sorfonden who each had two hits. Sorfonden drove in two runs, while Leinen and Soma drove in a run each.
Goshorn, Landen Kaufman and Jozef Reisz all had a hit, along with Reisz knocking in a run.
For the Cyclones, their record goes to 8-10 on the season. They return home for the next five games starting with the 5-12 Denison Monarchs Tuesday night.
The Monarchs are led by Wyatt Johnson with 13 hits and Cody Schulte with eight runs batted in. On the mound, Jaxon Wessel leads with three wins, 18 strikeouts and 3.92 earned run average.
“It’s always fun to play in front of the home crowd,” Stein said. “We’re just going to continue to look to get better. We’ve talked about consistently being what we’ve lacked all year long, so hopefully we can steadily make a climb to playing our best ball in the next two or three weeks and the postseason will be here before we know it."