Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Senior Kyle Schooley provided Regina with its second straight strong pitching performance of the week on Thursday against Northeast.

Not surprising the result was a second consecutive impressive win for the Regals.

Schooley followed up a complete game shutout by Danny Molony against Lisbon on Tuesday by limiting the Rebels to four hits in a six-inning complete game as Regina rolled to a 12-2 win in a River Valley Conference cross-divisional contest in Iowa City.

“That is one place that we are plus right now, our pitching has been really good all year,” Regina coach Steve Pacha said. “Our pitchers haven’t given up a ton of runs this year, we’ve had one bad inning most games, and if we can put runs behind our pitchers we can be really good.”

Regina put up six runs in a win over Lisbon on Tuesday.

On Thursday the Regals doubled that total while improving to 8-9 on the season and 7-6 in RVC play.

Junior Cameron Lehman and freshman Jack Clark each had two hits as Regina hammered out nine hits while posting double digit runs for the fourth time this season.

“Everybody is alive in the dugout and we have great team morale,” Clark said. “We are just having fun, we are playing loose and with that feeling you can have fun in the box and string together some hits.”

Northeast (6-10, 6-8) jumped to an early 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning as Sam Moraetes plated Caleb Gruhn with an RBI double into the right center field gap.

Regina answered quickly.

Schooley had a two-run single to left field in a three-run Regina first inning as the Regals took advantage of three walks.

“I wanted to help the team out and help myself out with some runs,” Schooley said. “I like that high pitch and I just attacked it.”

Regina scored three more runs in the second and third innings while building a 9-2 lead.

Danny Gavin plated runs with sacrifice flies in both the second and third innings and Levin Quinlan had a sac fly in the third.

“We are trying to make a shift to the team approach, buying in to sacrificing your stats to do a job for the guy next to you,” Pacha said. “The last few games we are starting to buy into that team approach every guy is just trying to do a job.”

The early runs were more than enough for Schooley who improved to 3-1 with the complete game win.

Schooley allowed just four hits while striking out six and walking four.

The senior right-hander allowed just one hit over the final three innings while striking out four in the final three frames.

“Honestly I feel like I didn’t have my best stuff today but the defense was backing me up,” Schooley said. “I give a lot of credit to them.”

While Schooley took care of the pitching everyone had a part in the Regina offensive success.

Seven different Regals had a hit and eight different Regina players scored a run on Thursday.

“Our bats are starting to come alive and in the dugout everyone is getting going,” Schooley said. “We are really going with the approach we over me, that’s our saying and we are coming together as a team.”

Clark finished 2-for-4 with a double, triple and an RBI.

The freshman catcher led off the fifth with a triple to right field and scored on a Quinlan single.

“I’m coming off a little bit of a slump and my approach was just staying loose and staying through the ball,” Clark said. “He ended up giving me that one fastball on the outside corner and I just threw my hands at it.”

Lehman had two hits, Gavin drove in three runs, and Quinlan, Jack Tierney and Lucas Moore all scored two runs.

Tierney and Quinlan had two RBI each.

Northeast                   101  000  –   2   4  2

Regina                        333  021  –  12  9  1

W – Kyle Schooley                 L – Hayden Lee

2B – NE: Sam Moraetes. ICR: Jack Clark,

3B – ICR: Jack Clark

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