Cyclones bats go quiet in road loss
In the bottom of the second inning with the bases loaded, a comebacker was hit to HCHS Senior Cyclone pitcher Braydon Ernst who turned and threw to shortstop Colton Schneider who was unable to field the ball cleanly causing Senior Clarinda Cardinals Caden Butt and Ayden Sunderman to score, which would be all the Cardinals would need winning 2-0, and handing the Cyclones their eighth loss.
“That one mental lapse,” said Cyclone Head Coach Heath Stein. “I guess we assumed that with corners in and bases loaded, pitchers know that they’re going to the plate, but we need to do a better job of pre-pitch communication on that one.”
Senior Cardinal Creighton Tuzzio got the ball for Clarinda and dominated the Cyclones batting order. The Cyclones did not get their first hit until the top of the fourth inning and it came off the bat of Senior Matthew Sorfonden. Following Sorfonden’s hit, Senior Quinn Koesters was able to draw a walk to put a little bit of pressure on Tuzzio. However, Tuzzio was able to work his way out of the inning with back-to-back strikeouts of Juniors Brett Heese and Hayden Soma to get out of the inning.
Ernst pitched four innings giving up just those two runs. Stein removed him after the fourth inning, replacing him with Koesters, who pitched two scoreless innings to keep his team within striking distance of the Cardinals.
“He’s executing pitches,” Stein said of Koesters. “He did a good job. He hadn’t had some work in a while, so that was our plan was to get him a little bit of work after Braydon.”
When Tuzzio returned to the mound in the top of the seventh inning, he got through the first two outs quickly, then surrendered a base hit to Soma, but was able to record the final out of the game going the distance and handing the Cyclones the loss.
“That’s the best arm we’ve seen,” Stein said of Tuzzio. “We haven’t seen high 80s pretty much all year. It took a while for us to adjust. Some guys made adjustments, and it’s good to see just in case we run into that down the road. Hopefully we learn from it and find ways to compete better in the box.”
The Cyclones return home Monday night at 7:30 p.m. against the 4-32 Council Bluffs Jefferson Yellow Jackets. Offensively, the Yellow Jackets are led by Garrett Denman with 32 hits and Jordan Steinspring with 15 runs batted in. On the mound, Peyton Steinspring has one win, while Kendall Bell leads his team in earned run average with 3.50, and Aiden Moore leads in strikeouts with 28.
“We just need to continue to work on some things,” Stein said. “Fine tune some things, and get things as cleaned up as possible before Friday.”