Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – As a four-year varsity veteran Brett McCleary has seen just about every situation imaginable during his prep career.

The City High senior added another to his career achievement list on Saturday.

In his first ever start against east side rival Regina McCleary tossed five strong innings to lead Class 4A ninth-ranked City High to a 5-1 win over the Regals in the third annual Crosstown Classic at Banks Field in Iowa City.

McCleary also blasted a two-run home run and finished three RBI as City High won a top-ten showdown over 2A No. 10 Regina in the annual fundraiser for The Fight With Flash Foundation.

“This is definitely something we look forward too,” McCleary said. “It’s an in-town rival, I’m, friends with a lot of those guys and we are always talking back and forth and I think getting on the field and playing them it’s a really competitive atmosphere and it’s for a great cause and it’s a great event. I really look forward to it every year.”

McCleary allowed just three hits while striking out six in five innings and senior Bryce Frantz tossed two innings of hitless relief as City High (17-5) won its seventh straight and 13 in the last 14 games.

The senior righthander improved to 3-1 on the season in his first outing since beating cross-town rival West High on June 9.

“It made a lot of sense for him to pitch today with throwing last week against West and we talked about breaking it up with him and Bryce,” City High coach Brian Mitchell said. “Both those guys wanted to be out there, this is a big deal, it’s a great day and we definitely want to represent ourselves well.”

Mitchell Gahan took the loss for Regina (14-6) which had a four-game winning streak snapped with its third loss to a ranked opponent from a larger class.

“They get a lot of credit because they are a really good team and for the most part we competed,” Regina coach Jeff Pacha said. “For us to reach our ultimate goal we need to find a way to start winning some of the games against really good teams like this.”

Regina had chances on Saturday but McCleary and the Little Hawks were too much to overcome.

The Regals scored first when Evan Suchomel led off the third inning with a walk and scored on the only City High error of the game, a throwing error on a Jayden Kies sacrifice bunt.

Kies ended up at third with no outs but was cut down at the plate trying to score on a Trent Hoogerwerf ground.

Blake Berns reached on a bloop single to right but McCleary struck out Ryne Schooley and Ryan Schott to end the threat.

“That was huge because if they put two or three up it really changes the outcome of the game,” McCleary said. “One more hit maybe means two or three more runs so the fact we made those plays was huge.”

City High pulled even scoring a run without a hit in the bottom of the inning.

Caleb Sass was hit by a pitch to open the inning, stole second and third and scored on a McCleary sacrifice fly.

That was just the start for City High.

The Little Hawks took their first lead in the fourth when Dylan Deshler doubled and scored on a Dillon Africa RBI single.

“When we get that first run they just keep coming,” Sass said. “We are a team that puts on runs, we don’t like playing from behind we like playing with a lead so that first run is always crucial for us.”

McCleary helped put things away in the fifth.

City High led 3-1 after Sass walked and scored and McCleary made it 5-1 when he hammered a Gahan changeup over the 327 sign in left field for a two-run homer.

 “I couldn’t really pick up spin early in the game and I went up there just really trying to focus in on spin and I saw it out of his hand it was the changeup grip so I kind of sat back and popped it,” McCleary said. “I was looking off-speed and I got off-speed.”

The home run was the fifth of the season for McCleary who homered in the opening game of a doubleheader sweep of Waterloo West on Friday.

That is all the offense City High needed as Frantz tossed two hitless innings to close out the game.

Hoogerwerf, Kies and Berns accounted for the three Regina hits.

“We got up first and we had a couple chances to go up two and make that our ballgame and we didn’t do that,” Pacha said. “The competitive side of me isn’t happy that we didn’t because in those situations when we did what we did early we need to find a way to win that game.”

Regina            001  000  0 –  1  3  2

City High       001  130  x –  5  6  1

W – Brett McCleary    L – Mitchell Gahan

2B – ICH: Dylan Deshler

HR –  ICH: Brett McCleary