Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SIOUX CITY – Liberty High ended a record-setting season on Tuesday a win short of another historic moment in the best season in program history.

A season that included a single season record for wins and the first Mississippi Valley Conference division title in program history closed without the first ever state tournament win.

Fifth-ranked Waukee Northwest (29-10) erased an early 1-0 deficit on its way to a 4-1 win over sixth-ranked Liberty High in a 4A quarterfinal at Lewis & Clark Park in Sioux City.

The quarterfinal loss was the third in three trips to the state tournament for Liberty High which entered the state tournament winners of six straight.

“I think for the first time in a long time in a long time we started to play tight,” Liberty High coach Uby Martinez said. “We were playing free and we were loose and the moment the wasn’t too big for us at all and then they got the run and we just tightened up.”

Tuesday’s loss was tough to swallow for a Liberty High team that features 10 seniors.

However, it didn’t take the shine of an impressive season for Liberty High that included 32 wins, an MVC Mississippi Division title and the third trip to state in the past four seasons.

“These seniors have played a lot baseball together, and what makes it hard is they were great leaders,” Martinez said. “It’s going to be really hard to replace them. This is a special group and they raised the stand at Liberty.”

Liberty High (32-10) took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning on an odd play.

The Lightning loaded the bases with one out on consecutive singles by Pryor Reiners and Cooper Hughes and the state-leading 41^st walk of the season for cleanup hitter Brayden Mayer.

Mason Waterbury was out via the infield fly rule on his sky-high pop up to short but Waukee Northwest senior Chase Jones had the ball pop out of his glove and Reiners scored from third to give the Lightning an early lead.

The rest of the game belong to the Wolves.

Waukee Northwest took the lead with two runs in the fourth and added a pair of insurance runs in the sixth on a two-out, two-run single by pinch hitter Jack Hilgenberg that made the score 4-1.

“We didn’t execute the best today,” Martinez said. “It’s the state tournament, you are with the top eight teams in your class and you have to execute and they executed some things better than we did and that was the ball game.”

After allowing two hits and a run in the opening inning Waukee Northwest starter Chuck Berdovich settled into a groove.

Berdovich allowed just two hits the rest of the game in a complete game that included three strikeouts.

Waukee Northwest will face Bettendorf (28-12) at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday in the 4A semifinals.

Bettendorf knocked off top-seeded Sioux City East 2-1 in the final Class 4A semifinal on Tuesday.

“I think if we have one hit in two or three different situations then our energy is back,” Martinez said. “We were a hit or two away, we had our chances we just didn’t make the most of it.”

Liberty High                          100  000  0  –  1  4  1

Waukee Northwest             000  202  x  –  4  5  0   

W – Chuck Berdovich                        L – Brady Zimmerman

2B – WNW: Andrew Eastman

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