Susan Harman

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – As accomplished as the West High baseball team is, and its record is 33-7 and its ranking is No. 2, watching the Trojans in the postseason is not for the faint of heart.

After surviving Muscatine’s upset bid in the substate opener, 2-1, West High was down to its last six outs before a late rally defeated Cedar Rapids Prairie 2-1 to send the Trojans to the state baseball tournament.

West High will play its state opener next Wednesday at Principal Park in Des Moines.

The Trojans trailed 1-0 as late as the sixth inning and had but one hit against Prairie sophomore Jackson Nove. But Jason Strunk’s towering pop-up was misplayed allowing him to reach first to lead off the inning.

“It was 3-1 and I saw a fastball coming down the middle,” Strunk said. “My eyes lit up a little bit because I’ve been in that position before. I just took a big cut and it went up, and I was like ‘Oh.’ I should have run it out a little harder. And then the ball dropped. And I’m like, ‘there we go, the baseball gods are on our side.’”

“He does sky it up in the air,” West coach Charlie Stumpff said. “These aren’t major league lights, and it’s dark so it’s a tough play.”

Senior Ryan Cooper made the Hawks pay with a blast off the right-centerfield fence for a double that tied the game.

“Not much was going through my head,” Cooper said. “It was just such a tight, contested game that we knew we needed one run, and I knew that their pitcher was slow to home and Strunk could take second pretty easily.”

Strunk got all the way to third thanks to an attempted pickoff that went down the line.

“He threw me that pitch, and he’d been outside, outside all day,” Cooper said. “And I took it that way.”

Getting the tying run energized the Trojans.

“I think that’s all we needed,” Strunk said. “We just needed the momentum to get going. Once we scored that run I felt like a lot of tension came off our team.”

“You can definitely feel the momentum,” starter Marcus Morgan said. “Guys started getting up in the dugout, and it gets contagious and everybody gets going.”

The rest of the sixth inning was the stuff of nightmares for Prairie.

With Cooper’s courtesy runner on second, Owen McAreavy walked. Chase Calderwood sacrificed the runners to second and third. Prairie elected to roll the dice and intentionally walk Ben Madden to load the bases with one out.

With a full count senior Ian Gluesing walked to force in the go-ahead run. But that was it.

West managed just three hits against Nove, who struck out eight, seven of which came on called third strikes.

“We were seeing it a little different than the umpire, but at the end of the day the ump’s zone is the ump’s zone and you can’t change it,” Strunk said. “We should have adjusted a little bit better.”

“We haven’t seen a lot of lefties,” Morgan said. “That’s probably part of it, but he had some good stuff.”

Stumpff called left-handed pitching West’s kryptonite.

“I don’t need to see lefthanders, and they threw a real good one at us,” he said. “(Nove) was carving our lefthanders up, and that makes it tough when a third of your lineup is being neutralized.”

Morgan allowed just one hit in his 6-2/3 innings, and that hit played no role in Prairie’s lone score.

Just as a reminder, Morgan allowed only two hits in a complete-game victory against Muscatine.

Morgan also struck out 13 Hawks and left the game only because of his pitch count.

Prairie scored in the fourth on a walk, a sacrifice, a passed ball and a wild pitch.

“We got crossed up, that’s what happened,” Morgan said.

As ugly as it was, that run looked formidable as the innings passed and it still stood up.

“For us, it was in the back of our minds. We obviously knew we were down one in the substate final,” Cooper said. “But sometimes it just takes that one good push, that one good inning where our leadoff hitter gets on for the first time.”

The Hawks (22-20) still had the top of the seventh to get even, and it wasn’t without some drama.

Cooper, the catcher, relieved Morgan after Morgan had walked two and struck out two in the seventh. 

Cooper faced pinch hitter Caden Stoffer.

“In that situation I just have to come in and throw hard and throw strikes,” Cooper said. “I love being a closer for that reason. It’s cool. Not many people can say they can do that.”

A pitch in the dirt moved the potential tying run to third, but Cooper took control.

Stoffer swung and missed at a slider in the dirt for the third strike. Catcher Matt Cupp blocked it and pounced on the ball a couple feet away.

Cupp calmly threw to first for the final out, and Cooper was buried under a pile of celebratory Trojans.

“I really liked that pitch,” Cooper said. “I saw it go in the dirt and my heart skipped a beat for a second. But I put a lot of trust in that pitch.”

Cedar Rapids Prairie            000  100  0  –  1  1  2

West High                               000  002  x  –  2  3  0

W – Marcus Morgan 9-0        L – Jackson Nove (4-4)

2B – ICW: Ryan Cooper

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