Young Spartans earn district baseball win over F-M

 COUNCIL BLUFFS (July 11) -- The wins have been hard to come by this summer for an Exira-Elk Horn-Kimballton baseball team with just one senior, so Saturday’s postseason victory over Fremont-Mills was plenty satisfying for the young Spartans.
 Junior ace Tyler Petersen struck out 12 in a complete game six-hitter and Exira-EHK used nine walks and nine stolen bases to chip away offensively for a 7-4 Class 1A district quarterfinal win over the Knights at St. Albert’s Chuck Wolever Field.
 Trailing 3-2 after three, the Spartans (3-11 overall) tied the game with a run in the fourth inning, took the lead with two in the fifth and added two insurance runs in the top of the seventh. They will now face third-ranked St. Albert (18-1) in a District 14 semifinal Tuesday (7:00 p.m.) back in Council Bluffs.
 “I’m proud of our kids. It was good to see our kids play the way they did and have some fun at the same time,” said Exira-EHK head coach Tom Petersen. “(There’s) just not a lot of experience (on our team) from a year ago and a lot of young kids are out there. I know that they’re happy and they should be, so I’m going to let them enjoy it. We’ll probably give them one day off and get back to work on Monday.
 Tyler Petersen hit a two-out double and scored on a passed ball in the first and later added a triple, but did his best work on the mound.
 After Brock Hetzel’s two-run single put the Knights up 3-2 in the bottom of the third, Petersen (2-4) retired 13 of the last 16 batters he faced with nine strikeouts.
 He would have achieved an immaculate inning (three Ks on nine pitches) in the seventh if not for a pitch that was barely outside. A dropped third strike and a single brought the tying run to the plate for Fremont-Mills before Petersen retired Brady Owen on a ground ball to end the game. He threw 105 pitches on a warm late afternoon/evening.
 Trey Petersen, Easton Nelson, Jameson Kilworth and Derrek Kommes all hit singles for Exira-EHK while Dane Paulsen and Kilworth both drew a pair of walks. In addition to the nine base-on-balls drawn by the Spartans, they were also hit-by-pitch four times and took advantage of four F-M errors.
 Both sides finished with six hits but Exira-EHK had no physical errors in the field and Petersen issued just three walks.

Class 1A, Substate 7 Baseball
District Quarterfinal Scores: Saturday, July 11
DISTRICT 13
CAM 17, Orient-Macksburg 0 (4)    Stanton 8, East Union 5
Nodaway Valley 10, Lenox 9 (9)    Bedford 21, Southwest Valley 0 (4)
DISTRICT 14
CB St. Albert 17, Essex 0 (4)    Sidney 22, Griswold 1 (4)
Exira-EHK 7, Fremont-Mills 4    East Mills 10, Riverside 9
District Semifinal Pairings: Tuesday, July 14
District 13: Nodaway Valley (8-8) at CAM (13-2), 7:00 p.m.
District 13: Stanton (10-4) vs. Bedford (5-10) -- at Corning, 7:00 p.m.
District 14: Exira-EHK (3-11) at #3 CB St. Albert (18-1), 7:00 p.m.
District 14: East Mills (7-6) at Sidney (7-3), 7:00 p.m.

 
 

 

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