Iowa Lakes would travel to West Burlington, Iowa to take on the first place Blackhawks from Southeastern Community College. The Lakers were deemed the home team for the series but would fall in both games today by the final scores of 9-2 in game one and 13-5 in game two.
Sophomore pitcher Dylan Klein (Sleepy Eye, Minnesota) would toe the rubber in game one battle for the Lakers as Southeastern would come out swinging in the first inning as they would plate 2-runs early on a homerun to left-center field. Southeastern would continue to add insurance runs in the second, third, and fourth innings as they would increase their lead to 6-0 after four innings of play. The Lakers would find a spark in the bottom of the fifth inning as Chad Hinkle (Rosemount, Minnesota) would single up the middle with one out and would advance to second base on a wild pitch. Tyrese Mitchell (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) would single to right field in the next at bat and put runners at first and third with only one and the top of the order coming up to the plate. Spencer Keane (Palm Springs, California) came up with a RBI single to bring home Hinkle and get Iowa Lakes on the scoreboard. Tavan Shahidi (Ames, Iowa) would come up two batters later with two outs in the inning and single to left-center field and drive home Mitchell to bring the score to 6-2 in favor of the Blackhawks. Although the Lakers would show some life in the fifth, Southeastern would continue to put the pressure on as they would increase lead and push the momentum their way and score a single run in the sixth and two in the seventh to push the score to 9-2 which would end up being the final outcome as well.
Some of the game one highlights came from the bats of Spencer Keane and Tavan Shahidi. Keane would end game one by going 2 for 3 with RBI and stolen base. Shahidi would go 1 for 3 with a RBI as well.
Game two would see offense out burst from both teams which would include home runs a plenty from both sides as well. Southeastern would again take the early lead by scoring four runs in the top half of the first inning. The Lakers, however, would answer right back and score a run in the bottom of the first when Shahidi would jump all over the first pitch and hammer a homerun to leftfield to bring Iowa Lakes closer with the scoring now being 4-1. The Blackhawks would put up a four run inning once again in the fourth and and increase the lead to 8-1 thanks in part to a couple of homeruns. The Lakers would get a couple of runs back of their own when Jayden Adrians (Green Bay, Wisconsin) would single to right field and would be brought home on a homerun by Ashtin Moxey (Jacksonville, Florida). With Southeastern tallying another run in the fifth and pushing the lead to 9-3, the Lakers offense bounce back as Mallard Holland (Tampa, Florida) would lead the inning off by getting hit by a pitch and advance to second base on a groundout by Shahidi. Adrians would come up with a big one-out RBI single to drive home Holland and bring the score to 9-4. Adrians would come around to score and make it 9-5 after couple of wild pitches would help him advance around the base paths. The Laker comeback would fall short as Southeastern would score four more runs over the next two innings to increase their lead to 13-5 which would be the final score as well.
Iowa Lakes will be back at it tomorrow (4/22) against Southeastern Community College with first pitch of the doubleheader scheduled 12 pm. Follow Iowa Lakes baseball, @Lakerbaseball, on twitter to get in-game updates along with other details and information about Laker baseball.
Picture Credited to Tara Catron Photography