Cyclones win 7th straight in extra innings
After the Atlantic Trojans offense scored four runs in the bottom of the 7th to tie the ballgame, the Cyclones came right back and scored three runs in the top of the 8th, en route to a 15-12 victory and their seventh consecutive victory.
“We kind of rallied and put a big number up to get a pretty good lead and we were hoping to close the ballgame out,” said Cyclones Head Coach Heath Stein. “Some things didn’t go exactly as planned, but our guys didn’t give up. They kept battling and were able to grind out a win.”
Braydon Ernst got the ball to start the night on the mound for the Cyclones. He pitched 4 1/3 innings, struck out three, but walked three batters and gave up six runs on five hits.
“He was kind of inconsistent,” Stein said. “He’s battled all year. He is good enough to be our ace. We kind of look for him to go out and have dominating outings. I look forward to him continuing to get better and pitch with a little more of an edge on the mound.”
The Cyclones scored a run in the first four innings, three in the 6th, five in the 7th and three in the 8th.
Multiple Cyclones contributed to the offense including Quinn Koester and Cade Sears who had two hits each. Stephen Leinen and Jozef Reisz each had three hits, and Hayden Soma and Weston Reisz each had a hit.
Koesters and Soma knocked in four runs, while Sears had two and scored four of the Cyclones 15 runs.
“Jozef Reisz has been absolutely on a tear,” Stein added. “Stephen Leinen was back in the lineup, he had three hits.”
With this win, the Cyclones have won seven consecutive game and eight of their previous nine, after starting the season 0-5.
“I’m pretty proud of the guys the whole way,” Stein said. “Even when we went through a very tough start to the season, they’ve maintained great attitudes, great work ethics and it’s paying off right now and hopefully we can maintain that for another few weeks and we’re still playing good ball at the end.”
The Cyclones next match will be Monday on the road against the 6-14 Shenandoah Mustangs in a doubleheader with game one starting at 5 p.m. The Mustangs are led by Gage Herron batting .286 with 14 hits and Dalton Athen with 12 runs batted in. On the mound, Camden Lorimor has two wins and Logan Twyman leads in strikeouts with 31.
“They haven’t won a lot of games, but they’ve been competitive in a lot of games,” Stein added. “They’re very capable of hanging with a lot of teams in the Hawkeye Ten, so we’re going to have to pitch well, limit free bases, put together good at bats and hopefully we can go get a couple of wins."