Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – Friday was senior night for Liberty High.

It was a meeting with an arch rival, an opportunity to stop a losing skid, a chance to build much-needed late-season momentum.

For the Lightning it was all exactly what was needed.

Liberty High stopped a three-game losing streak with a doubleheader sweep of rival West High on Friday on a sun-splashed evening in North Liberty winning the opener 4-3 and taking the nightcap 6-2.

“It is just what we needed,” first-year Liberty High head coach Uby Martinez said. “We came out swinging the bats and we had two really good pitching performances out of two young kids that we asked a lot of. It all came together today.”

Sophomore pitchers Mason Waterbury and Andrew Olthoff each had strong starts on senior night as Liberty High posted its third double header sweep of West High in the last four seasons.

Liberty High hammered 18 hits in the doubleheader after managing just one run on five hits in a doubleheader sweep against rival City High on Monday.

“We needed these wins,” Liberty High senior Mason Gardner said. “We needed to get our bats turned on which they haven’t been lately and we got 10 hits the last game which is better than it has been so it’s what we needed.”

Liberty High (had lost three straight and five of its last six after being swept by City High on Monday.

The Lightning got back on track on Friday against another cross-town rival.

Waterbury scattered six hits and struck out five in six innings in the opener and Olthoff fanned six and allowed just three hits and two runs in 5 1/3 in the nightcap as Liberty High won for the eighth time in the past 10 games against West High.

“It feels great to win a game against a rival like that,” Liberty High senior Luke Ramsey said. “It’s really big for our momentum going into the postseason.”

A Liberty High offense that had struggled of late turned to small ball to get rolling on Friday.

West High (15-20) took an early 1-0 lead in the first inning when Carter Freidhof led off with a single and scored on a Zach Logsdon sacrifice fly that followed a Mitch Frey one-out double.

Liberty High took the lead for good with a three-run fifth inning that featured three consecutive bunt singles by the eight, nine and one spots in the order.

“Today we were fortunate that we had some guys step up,” Martinez said. “We work on the small ball game a lot and we had to go to that today and guys executed and that really got us going.

Jackson Khamphilanouvong doubled to start the three-run Lightning fifth and number eight hitter  Liam Bender followed with a bunt single.

A Ryan Schmierer bunt single scored a run and leadoff hitter Luke Ramsey followed with a bunt single.

“We do work on small ball stuff a lot and it’s important for us to win the close games,” Ramsey said. “The bunts we had in that fifth inning were crucial to our success.

A Gardner sac fly scored Schmierer and Jayden Khamphilanouvong capped the three-running inning with a pinch-hit single to score Ramsey.

“We know we can’t rely on the long ball and I think we benefit from playing in a big park knowing we can’t do that,” Martinez said. “It takes a lot of execution and we expect our guys one through nine to be able to do that and I think it showed today.”

Liberty High jumped to a 4-0 lead in the nightcap scoring two runs in the first and one in the second and third.

Braden O’Connor and Carter Meyers had RBI singles in the first inning and Schmierer singled and scored on a Copper Hughes sacrifice fly in the second.

Gardner doubled and scored in the third and tripled and scored on an O’Connor single in the fifth to give the Lightning a 5-1 lead.

I’ve been struggling the last few games so those two hits, I don’t want to say were a relief but that’s what we needed,” Gardner said. “The double and triple I think were the hardest hits of my career. I hit those really hard.”

Game 1

West High                  100  002  0  –  3  6  0

Liberty High              000  031  x  –  4  8  2

W – Mason Waterbury                       L – Kyle Cherry

2B – ICL: Cooper Hughes, Jackson Khamphilanouvong. ICW: Mitch Frey (2)

Game 2

West High                  000  101  0  –  2   3   0

Liberty High              600  500  1  –  6  10  1

W – Andrew Olthoff                           L – Ben Hoefer

2B – ICL: Mason Gardner

3B – ICL: Mason Gardner

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