Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – It gets harder and harder to remember with every impressive offensive outing but there was a time not all that long ago that West High was struggling at the plate.

Earlier this month West High plated a single run during a three-game losing skid that featured 15 consecutive scoreless innings and dropped the Trojans to 4-4 in Mississippi Valley Conference play.

“When you don’t score runs everything is magnified and there is just no energy,” veteran West High coach Carlie Stumpff said. “We were hopefully but we were scuffling.”

Those offensive struggles seemed like ancient history on Monday.

Class 3A third-ranked West High won for the 10th time in 11 games since its three-game losing streak, hammering 13 extra-base hits in an MVC doubleheader sweep of Cedar Rapids Prairie (10-11, 7-8) in Iowa City.

Ben Madden homered in a 10-1 win in the opener and Owen McAreavy and Jason Strunk each added long balls in a 15-0 five-inning West High win in the nightcap that improved the Trojans to 17-5 on the season and 13-5 in MVC play.

“We just weren’t hitting the ball, we weren’t getting guys on base and when we did we left a lot of guys on base in that stretch,” McAreavy said of the early struggles. “Tonight, and over the past couple of weeks we’ve been hitting well and seeing the ball and driving people in.”

West High had nine hits total in its three consecutive MVC losses earlier this month that featured losses to Liberty High and a doubleheader sweep at the hands of Cedar Rapids Xavier.

Since those losses nothing has slowed West High.

The Trojans are averaging 10 runs per game over their last 11 games and have scored double digit runs in four of their last five games.

“It was just a little bit of trying to figure out who we were and now that we finally got everything rolling the confidence is high between a lot of guys,” Strunk said. “In baseball that confidence really carries over.”

West High broke open a 1-1 game in the opener with three runs in the fourth inning capped by a two-run blast by Madden.

The Trojans had 14 hits in the opener with Madden, Casey Marvin and McAreavy all picking up two hits.

“We know we can hit the ball,” Madden said. “We knew we would get over the hump, we have good hitters on this team so we knew we were going to get past it.”

In the opener 11 different West High players had a hit and seven different players drove in a run.

It was more of the same in the nightcap as West High pounded 12 hits with eight going for extra bases.

Strunk and McAreavy each homered and drove in two runs to lead a West High attack that featured hits from nine different players.

“We have a lot of guys getting into their rhythm and you could see that tonight against a good team,” Strunk said. “Prairie is a good team and coming out and playing well and not making mistakes we saw what we could do.”

Junior Ben Vander Leest started the West High barrage with the first of his two RBI doubles in the second inning.

Nick Biancuzzo added an RBI single in the second as West High took a 2-0 lead.

That was just the warmup for West High.

McAreavy hammered a towering two-run home run to left field in a three-run third inning and Strunk launched a two-run shot in a four-run fourth.

Marcus Morgan had a double and Chase Calderwood doubled twice and drove in a run.

“We needed McAreavy to start hitting and he’s started hitting, Marcus Morgan has really hit the ball well and Madden has been really good,” Stumpff said. “Guys that we thought were going to hit have picked it up and we are a pretty deep lineup.”

Morgan earned the win in the nightcap allowing just one hit while fanning five in four innings.

With the win Morgan ran his record to 6-0 on the season and the sophomore right-hander dropped his ERA to .24 in the process.

“When he throws it’s pretty easier for us fielders,” Madden said. “We know if we can get a couple of runs we are in pretty good shape.”

Game 1

West High      100  360  0  –  10  14  1

CR Prairie     001  000  0  –   1    3   1

W – Noah Aanestad               L – Jackson Nove

2B – ICW: Casey Marvin, Owen McAreavy  

HR – ICW: Ben Madden

Game 2

West High      023  46  –  15  12  3

CR Prairie     000  00  –   0    2   5

W – Marcus Morgan               L – Caden Stoffer

2B – ICW: Ben Vander Leest (2), Chase Calderwood (2), Ben Madden, Marcus Morgan

HR – ICW: Jason Strunk, Owen McAreavy

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