Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – A two-week gauntlet filled with ranked teams left Liberty High mired in an 11-game losing streak.

The Lightning got back on track on Monday and they did it in a familiar fashion.

Liberty High got strong starts from Lewis Waterbury and Alex Strunk and used aggressive baserunning, timely hitting and nearly error-less defense to sweep Dubuque Hempstead (9-17) in a Mississippi Valley Conference doubleheader in North Liberty.

“That’s our brand of baseball,” Liberty High Evan Schmierer said. “When we lost on Friday (to third-ranked Cedar Rapids Prairie) we just knew we had to flush it and get back to work and get back to being us.”

Liberty High scored five runs in the first two innings in a 6-4 win in the nightcap and got 5 2/3 strong innings from Strunk in a 7-1 win in the nightcap to complete the sweep.

The sweep ends an 11-game losing streak for Liberty High that featured 10 losses to ranked opponents including eight losses to teams ranked in the top three.

“We just needed one in the worst way,” Liberty High coach Uby Martinez said. “I felt like today was the first time we got back to executing, being aggressive on the bases. Today to get a win and get the smiles back on their faces we needed it.”

Waterbury got the win in the opener allowing three runs on four hits in 3 1/3 innings but it was the offense that picked up the senior left-hander.

Liberty High (13-12) took control of the game with a three-run second inning that featured a two-run triple by Schmierer and an RBI single by junior Pryor Reiners.

“11 straight is tough on the mind,” Schmierer said. “It means everything to get these wins and just get back on track.”

Brady Leibold, William Frey and Drew Turgasen combined to work 3 2/3 innings of one-run relief.

Turgasen worked a scoreless seventh to secure the save.

Strunk tossed 5 2/3 innings in the nightcap allowing just one run on four hits while striking out three as Liberty High completed the sweep.

“We needed this really bad,” Strunk said. “This feels amazing and it gives us so much confidence going into tomorrow and we’ll try to win more.”

Liberty High snapped a scoreless tie in game two scoring five runs with two outs in the fourth.

Jordan Schroeder started the two-out rally when he was hit by a pitch.

Schroeder went from first to third on a wild pitch and scored on an RBI single by Turgason.

Pierce Beckman had an RBI single and James O’Connor a two-run double in the five-run inning.

That was more than enough support for Strunk who allowed just a single run in the sixth before giving way to relievers Grayson Bennett and Adrian Clerry who worked 1 1/3 scoreless innings.

“Alex just competes,” Martinez said. “His last two starts he’s look tired and tonight he looked back. He got the slider going today and he looked sharp.”

O’Connor had three hits and drove in two runs in the nightcap and Beckman was 2-for-2 with a triple and two RBI.

“Our goal number one is to win the division and then it’s to get a one seed and try to play ourselves into the state tournament,” Martinez said. “As we go through we readjust, we aren’t going to win the division, we aren’t going to win the division so our goal is to be playing our best baseball in July. After the last two weeks we aren’t afraid of anything because we’ve seen everything.”

Game 1

Dubuque Hempstead            100  201  0  –  4  7  0

Liberty High                          230  010  0  –  6  8  1

W – Lewis Waterbury             L – Will Steffen

2B – ICL: Jordan Schroeder

3B – ICL: Evan Schmierer

Game 2

Dubuque Hempstead            000  001  0  –  1  4  0

Liberty High                          000  000  0  –  7  7  0

W – Alex Strunk                     L – Nolan Deutsch

2B – ICL: James O’Connor

3B – ICL: Pierce Beckman

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