All due respect

The No. 6 ranked Fairfield varsity baseball team was eliminated by No. 2 Davenport Assumption 3-2 Wednesday night at Muscatine in the Class 3A substate-4 final, ending the Trojans' season with a 26-5 overall record.

'We knew that we were going to see hard-throwers, so we amped it up in batting practice,” explained skipper Josh Allison of his team's gameplan.

'We knew that in the past they have tried to intimidate teams and I'm proud of the boys for sticking to the game plans, we just didn't get as many hits today as we needed to get the job done. Defensively, we played pretty well if you just take away one inning. I'm proud of the effort we had out here and we knew it was going to be a close game, unfortunately, it didn't go the way we wanted.”

The inning that Coach Allison and the boys wish they could erase is the home-half of the third when the Knights scored the three decisive runs needed for the victory, although the Trojans immediately responded with two runs of their own in the top of the fourth.

'It's a test of our character the way we battled back in this game,” said soon-to-be-Cyclone Brittan Bowman. 'Three weeks ago, our heads would have gone down and we would have been out of the game when they took the 3-0 lead, but it just shows how much baseball and sports in general can grow you as a person and not just a player.”

Another recent FHS graduate, Cooper Drish had his first leadoff single of the game in the frame before Senior ball-smasher Austin Simpson came up and torched one off of the end of his stick.

'I saw fastball for a strike and then he came at me with two curveballs,” said Simpson. 'I pieced it up at the end of the bat, and to be honest, I really didn't hit it that good.”

He hit it good enough and maybe that was because Simpson was playing for someone special.

'Every time I go into a big game I try to pick out someone to play for,” said Simpson through the tears of the career-ending loss. 'Today I picked out my grandpa, Ken Ames. He died of cancer about six years ago and he was very influential to me and I just wanted to do everything I could to win because I know he's watching me.”

No matter how hard the Trojans tried, including Drish starting off the seventh with another leadoff single, Fairfield could not break through for the tying run.

'You could definitely see the ball,” said Tristin Waugh who is headed to Iowa Central to play football. 'He had a straight fastball and a good curveball. We had to be quick because he was the best pitcher we've faced all year, but he was definitely hittable. Austin made that clear.”

On the mound, the Trojans sent strong and steady Kosta Papazoglou to the hill and he did not disappoint.

'I was just trying throw strikes,” said K-Pap, 'including keeping my off-speed in the zone. I was able to throw my change-up well tonight, but I didn't really start throwing it until the third inning.”

The daily controversy, and there always seems to be some when you pay part-time officials $75 to get screamed at, was an uneven strikezone that seemed awfully tight for Papazoglou, while the Trojans were called out several times on strikes that seemed to be out of any zone.

'It definitenly wasn't equal, they called way more strikes low for them,” described the Trojan pitcher after throwing 93 pitches for the complete game loss. K-Pap allowed just two hits and one walk along with the three runs, only on of which was earned. Kosta also collected the fourth Trojan hit to go with the Simpson homer and the two Drish singles.

Saying goodbye

'It wasn't that long ago that we had another large group of seniors that we had to say goodbye to,” said Allison after the heart-wrenching loss. 'We had eight leave after our last state tournament team in 2014. We'll get the next team ready and the legacy is there that those guys left with the young players who have watched them work and know what it takes. The leadership they showed in practice will carry over and we'll get the next group of guys ready to go.”

The future

'I'm just going to take the experience that Drew, Matthew and I got and use that as leadership for the other seniors,” said junior Carter Ferrel. 'We will make sure we get to where we need to be.”