Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR RAPIDS – The City High baseball program has been built on pitching and defense.

That combination has served the Little Hawks well over recent years with four state tournament appearances over the past five seasons.

On Wednesday pitching and defense propelled City High to the state semifinals.

Jaxton Schroeder and Jake Mitchell combined on a five-hit shutout as third-ranked City High edged Waukee 2-0 in a Class 4A state quarterfinal at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids.

“Defense is our game and we have the best pitchers in the state so that’s the expectation,” Schroeder said. “We know getting the runs across will come.”

Schroeder struck out six in six strong innings and had the go-ahead infield RBI single in the fifth inning as City High (34-7) advanced to the 4A semifinals for the second time in the past three seasons.

City High will face West Des Moines Dowling (24-15) in a 4A semifinal on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

“We are going to go out and stay relaxed we’ve been here the past two years and we know we’ve put in the work,” Jake Mitchell said. “We’ve put in the training and we know we belong here.”

Schroeder allowed five hits and a pair of walks in six innings but wiggled out of trouble in the fourth and fifth.

Waukee (26-17) put runners on first and third with no out in the fourth but Schroeder got Hunter Reed swinging for the first out.

City High senior catcher Aidan Wetmore threw out Grant Sorensen attempting to retreat to third base following a failed squeeze bunt attempt.

“That was huge, momentum was going their way they had runners on and they are looking to score runs there and to shut that down was a really big shift for us,” Schroeder said. “One of the following innings was when we got our runs so it was a huge momentum run that we needed.”

Waukee got two runners in the fifth but Schroeder got Sorensen to fly out to center to end the inning.

City High turned a 4-6-3 to end a potential Warrior threat in the sixth.

“It was really just a big team performance,” Schroeder said. “Our defense made a lot of big plays in clutch situation that we needed and we put the runs up that we needed to get the job done.”

City High snapped a scoreless tie with a pair of runs in the fifth.

Senior Raymond Nugent started the rally with a pinch-hit, one-out single to right field and after Mitchell drew a two-out walk Schroeder had a looping liner land behind the pitchers mound for an infield hit.

“I was hunting fastball and I didn’t put a great swing on it but that’s just baseball sometimes,” Schroeder said. “I got the runs in and did the job.”

The hit by Schroeder was the fifth of the game for City High which finished with six hits by six different players.

“It’s crazy that’s how baseball works,” Jake Mitchell said. “We smoked some balls early right at guys and they had guys making diving catches and of course it’s a dinker that scores a run.”

The two runs in the fifth proved to be enough offense for City High.

After Michael Ogles led off the Waukee seventh with a single to right Mitchell relieved Schroeder and Wetmore picked off pinch runner Payton Mizer.

Mitchell then got back-to-back ground balls to shortstop to end the game.

“I thought we stayed with it and we were pretty calm,” City High coach Brian Mitchell said. “We didn’t panic at all and we’ve played a lot of these games. To have that experience last year I think helped.”

Owen Hicks had a hit and scored a run for City High which also got singles from Max Waldschmidt and Talon Young.

“Definitely being here the last two years helped keep us calm,” Jake Mitchell said. “We are taking it one pitch at a time and controlling what we can control is our attitude and effort.”

Waukee                      000  000  0  –  0  5  2

City High                   000  020  x  –  2  6  2

W – Jaxton Schroeder                         L – Grant Sorensen

2B – ICH: Jake Mitchell

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