Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – City High failed to take advantage of a strong outing by sophomore Cade Obermueller in a season-opening loss to Liberty High last week.

The Little Hawks made sure not to squander a second consecution stellar start from their sophomore ace on Tuesday.

Garrett Bormann and Carter Seaton each had three hits and Obermueller threw five innings shutout innings as City High defeated Class 3A fifth-ranked Cedar Rapids Xavier 4-1 in the opener of a Mississippi Valley Conference Mississippi Division doubleheader at Mercer Park.

Xavier (3-1) salvaged a split with a 9-7 win over City High (3-3) in the nightcap.

“Tonight, we started swinging the bats a lot better,” Seaton said. “Obie was on tonight, we got a few hits and we put it all together.”

In the season opener against Liberty High Obermueller allowed just one run on three hits but City High couldn’t muster a hit in a 2-0 loss.

Obermueller was equally effective on Tuesday, shutting down a Xavier lineup that scored a combined 23 runs in back-to-back wins over Cedar Rapids Jefferson and West High to open the season.

“The first game I was pretty nervous but I know my teammates and my coaches have my back,” Obermueller said. “When you are on a team like this it helps you relax because I know they have my back.”

Obermueller allowed just one run on one hit in five innings on Tuesday striking out four.

The left-hander walked five and needed 90 pitches to get through five innings but limited a potent Xavier lineup to just one run.

“I think Cade is pretty strong willed, I’m confident in him and he’s confident in himself,” City High coach Brian Mitchell said. “He was probably a little sharper I think against Liberty, he had a few more walks tonight but he competes and they are rarely going to square balls up on him because he has so much movement on his fastball and he comes from such a tough angle that he is really, really effective.”

Egan Smith and Garrett Bormann both singled and scored in a two-run City High third that gave the Little Hawks a lead that Obermueller would never give up.

Seaton had a two-run single in the fourth to push the City High lead to 4-1.

“I only had two hits all season coming into tonight so it was awesome to start swinging the bat better,” Seaton said. “Tonight felt a lot better.”

That was more than enough for Obermueller and senior Reese Hayden who worked two scoreless innings of relief to earn the save.

“I throw that two-seam and it had some good break on it,” Obermueller said. “I got my curve ball in there but it was more fastball tonight.”

Xavier loaded the bases in the seventh with one out but Hayden got Tyler Dupont to bounce into a double play to end the game.

Seaton, who started the game in left field but moved to second base when Hayden came in to pitch, fielded the ground ball off the bat of Dupont, stepped on second and threw to first for the final out.

“I came in to play second and it was hit right at me,” Seaton said. “It was a pretty easy play.”

Xavier scored four runs in the first inning of the nightcap and took a 7-0 lead in the third before hanging on to win 9-7.

Gable Mitchell, who went 4-for-4 in the nightcap, had an RBI triple in the third to get City High on the board.

City High cut the lead to 9-7 with a four-run fifth inning that featured a two-run, pinch hit double by senior Kolbe Schnoebelen.

“I don’t think we were necessarily competitive coming out right away in the second game,” Mitchell said. “I think you win that first one and you expect to get that sweep and they aren’t going to roll over, they are really well coached and that’s just the way they are. I’m just disappointed a little bit in our competitiveness at points but I was really happy to see us battle back.”

Obermueller and Joey Bouska each had two hits in the nightcap as City High finished with 12 hits.

“We fought,” Obermueller said. “Even though we lost that last game we fought and we know that we are a good team.”

Game 1

CR Xavier      010  000  0  –  1  2  3

City High       002  200  x  –  4  9  0

W – Cade Obermueller          L – Ben Kisting                      SV – Reese Hayden

2B – CRX: Nicholas Fischer             

Game 2

CR Xavier     403  110  0  –  9  14  1

City High       002  140  0  –  7  12  1

W – Matthew Tvedt                L – Egan Smith

2B – ICH: Kolbe Schnoebelen. CRX: Tyler Dupont (2), Myles Butkowski

3B – ICH: Gable Mitchell. CRX: Jax Lux, Nick Banowetz, Jaxon Rexroth, Alex Neal

HR – CRX: Nick Banowetz

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