Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – The road to a Mississippi Valley Conference divisional title hit a small bump for the City High baseball team on Thursday.

As Brian Mitchell pointed out the Little Hawks are still in the driver’s seat.

Class 4A fourth-ranked City High fell to seventh-ranked Cedar Rapids Washington 7-5 in nine innings Thursday in the continuation of a MVC Valley Division doubleheader that started on June 21.

City High dropped to 22-8 and 15-5 in MVC play with the loss but still leads Washington (16-10, 12-7) by two games in the loss column with six to play.

“Even though we lost that game we feel really good about where we are,” Mitchell said. “We have a lot of good things going on you lose a tough one today but ultimately speaking we are in a good spot.”

Washington scored a pair of runs in the ninth on a bases loaded walk to Nolan Cavanaugh and a sacrifice fly by Kaleb Donels to complete the doubleheader sweep that started with a 1-0 win eight days earlier.

City High committed five errors that led to three earned run as the Little Hawks lost for just the third time in 15 games.

“Ultimately it came down to defense,” Mitchell said. “Not only a few errors in there but not being at the bag when we should have been, not working real hard and that’s the difference between a win and a loss there.”

Despite the loss, City High is still in position to claim the Valley Division.

The Little Hawks close the regular season with doubleheaders against Cedar Rapids Jefferson, Dubuque Wahlert and Cedar Rapids Kennedy.

That stretch begins Friday when City High hosts Cedar Rapids Jefferson (16-11, 12-6) on Friday.

“I feel pretty good, we have a good team but errors kind of killed us here and there,” City high senior Zach Stone said. “It’s a little frustrating but we have big games coming up so we need to move on.”

Stone helped City High take a 3-1 lead in the third inning on Thursday.

The senior first baseman got the Little Hawks on the board in the second inning when he reached on an infield single, stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a Dylan Deshler RBI single.

Stone then gave City High a 3-1 lead in the third inning with an RBI double that plated Caleb Sass.

“I felt like I was seeing it a lot better today than I have in the past week or so,” Stone said. “We will have to see tomorrow and Saturday but today felt good.”

In the first meeting between the two teams last week Washington pitcher Jacob Bockenstedt tossed a five-inning no-hitter.

City High had eight hits and scored four runs off Bockenstedt in five innings on Thursday.

“Ultimately I actually was really impressed with the way that we came out and swung the bats against a pitcher that took it to us last time,” Mitchell said. “I thought our approach was really good that way.”

Washington used a four-run fifth inning to take a 5-3 lead but City High scored single runs in the fifth and sixth to force extra innings.

Stone had an RBI single in the fifth that cut the lead to 5-4 while Travis Reyhons tied the game with a two-out RBI single in the sixth.

Reyhons went 3-for-4 with an RBI and a run while Stone was 3-for-5 with a double and two RBI to lead City High.

Caleb Sass and Cole Milder each added a pair of hits.

“I think we had a better approach,” Stone said. “A lot of times we over-hype a team and in return we get too ahead of ourselves and today we just came out and played baseball.”

City High had two-out base runners in both the seventh and eighth innings with a chance to win the game but couldn’t move them.

Washington took advantage of its scoring opportunity in the ninth, scoring a pair of runs on two hits and a walk.

City High now has to quickly refocus if it intends to secure a conference title.

“It wasn’t that important to us until we got to this point,” Mitchell said. “Now we are in a position where it has become more important to us, we are in a position where that we know the next six games if we take care of business we will go get that.”

CR Washington         010  040  002  –  7  11  0

City High                   012  011  000  –  5  12  5

W – Seth Semrau        L – Levi Pugh             SV – Luke Jonasson

2B – ICH: Zach Stone, Travis Reyhons