Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – As a four-sport athlete Marcus Morgan has experienced the City High vs. West High rivalry on everything from the football field to the basketball court and the track.

The West High senior standout came up with perhaps his best performance against his cross-town rival in what will likely be his last appearance in the rivalry.

Morgan struck out 11 in a complete game two-hitter as West High edged Class 4A seventh-ranked City High 2-1 in a Mississippi Valley Conference thriller on Friday in front of a boisterous crowd at Mercer Park.

“The thought crossed my mind that this might be the last time that I ever see these guys when I was up on the mound toward the end of the game,” Morgan said. “I was just thinking this is it I might as well just finish it off.”

The stellar start from Morgan helped West High (18-11, 13-10 MVC) salvage and season split with City High (24-10, 20-6) after dropping the first game 13-3 on Thursday night.

Morgan allowed just a pair of singles, a walk and a hit by pitch while improving to 3-1 on the season.

“Fair or unfair after last night when they beat us down pretty good I told Marcus we are going to ride your back and your shoulders and he said ‘we are good’,” West High coach Charlie Stumpff said. “That’s what we did. He’s going to carry us in games like this.”

Morgan was outstanding from the outset.

He retired the first 10 hitters he faced but West High still trailed 1-0 after Carter Seaton singled with one out in the fourth and scored on wild pitch.

West High pulled even in the top of the fifth when Ian McAreavy drew a leadoff walk and scored on a two-out double to right field by sophomore Mitch Frey.

“It’s really nice to come back and play like we did especially after how we did last night,” Frey said. “It’s hard to come back from that and we did. It meant a lot to us.”
West High took its first lead in the sixth.

Noah DeSaulniers singled with one out in the sixth and ended up at third after a walk to Ben Hoefer and Ian McAreavy reached on a fielders choice.

With two outs McAreavy got caught off first but DeSaulniers broke for home and scored the go-ahead run.

That was plenty of support for Morgan.

Morgan escaped a rare jam in fifth getting Jacob Williamson to ground into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.

“The defense behind me today was phenomenal,” Morgan said. “I think it was a zero for errors, without that I don’t think we are getting that win so it was great defense behind me.”

Morgan struck out the side in the sixth and closed out the game with more help from his defense in the seventh.

McAreavy made a sliding grab of a Gable Mitchell drive into the right center field gap to open the seventh inning.

After a one-out walk to John Klosterman the senior right-hander got Gavin Koch to pop out to right field before striking out Cedric Dunnwald swinging to end the game.

“He was phenomenal,” Stumpff said. “His slider is probably as good as anybody in the city including University of Iowa guys. That’s really good stuff.”

With the tying run on third Morgan went to a 3-2 count to Dunnwald before getting the City High catcher swinging at a slider to end the game.

“Tonight it was on and off but I have as much confidence in that pitch as any pitch,” Morgan said. “That last inning I felt good with it, I felt confident with it and obviously coach O’Meara felt confident with it and trusted it. He knows their hitters better than I do and he called it and we got it done.”

Cade Adkins, Schulyer Houston and Nathan Stephens all had singles for the Trojans who finished with five hits.

Jacob Means had the other hit for City High.

“We’ve really gotten better as a team from where we started and we were not good last night,” Stumpff said. “Tonight we made some plays and we were putting a lot of pressure on them offensively.”

West High                  000  011  0  –  2  5  0

City High                   000  100  0  –  1  2  2

W – Marcus Morgan               L – Alex Knudtson

2B – ICW: Mitch Frey

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