W-MU/WACO demolishes Columbus in conference doubleheader

After an eight run first inning of game one Friday night, the Winfield-Mt. Union/WACO baseball team looked to be in good shape against Columbus in a Southeast Iowa Super Conference North Division doubleheader.

Unfortunately for Columbus, W-MU/WACO (4-2 overall, SEISC North) was just getting warmed up.

Seven innings later, as both games were cut short by the 10 run rule, W-MU/WACO had picked up two more wins on the season ? by a combined score of 37-5.

"In the four previous games, we'd lost the first game of the doubleheader by 10 [runs] and then we'd come back and win the second game," said W-MU/WACO coach Scott McCarty. "We'd talked all week. We had to have practice in the gym yesterday [Thursday] due to the rain, we sat and talked about coming out right from the start of game one having your foot on the gas and going."

In game one, W-MU/WACO did most of its scoring damage with one out in the second inning, batting through its lineup one and a half times. The team held a 17-0 lead at the end of the second inning before Tyler Ayers wound up with an RBI double, scoring the last run of the game for W-MU/WACO. Columbus's lone run came on an RBI single in the top of the fourth inning as W-MU/WACO won 18-1.

"[In] the first game we pitched a lot better, we had a good outing from Andrew Roller. We hit the ball consistently the entire game, played good defense, no errors and made the routine play which is always nice," said McCarty.

Game two started a little more closely than McCarty or W-MU/WACO would have liked, as the team held a two-run, 4-2, lead at the end of the third inning. McCarty pulled starting pitcher Kolton Booth in favor of Grant Edwards in the top of the fourth after Booth gave up two runs on RBI triple and singles. Edwards finished the inning, sitting the Columbus batters down one-two-three.

Then, W-MU/WACO's bats came alive again in the bottom of the fourth, turning the 4-4 tie into a 15 run inning. Ayers drove in the game-ending RBI single, scoring Ty Reynolds and wrapping up W-MU/WACO's sweep, 19-4.

"In the second game, we kind of struggled a little on the mound. We struggled a little to find our bat and then that last inning we did most of our damage with one out which was nice to see," said McCarty. "Some kids made adjustments to their swing and were going opposite field [with] line drives and they were able to do that. It was kind of fun to have a couple of games like that."

W-MU/WACO travels to Louisa-Muscatine on Tuesday evening for another SEISC North doubleheader, starting at 5:30 p.m.