Demon baseball completes busy week

FAIRFIELD ? Fans at the ballpark were treated to a couple of great games as conference rivals Fairfield and Washington met up for a doubleheader on Thursday afternoon.

The Trojans connected on a couple of more plays than the Demons in the contests, coming away with a 3-0 victory in the first game, following it up with a 3-2 victory in nine innings in the nightcap.

?It was a matter of fixable things,? Washington baseball head coach Nathan Miller said. ?They were better than us on some execution things. There was no difference between the two teams. We just had a few spots where we didn?t execute and they made the plays. In tight games, that?s the difference.?

The Trojans? Cameron Baumann outdueled Washington?s Tanner Coleman in game one, leading Fairfield to a 3-0 shutout victory. Coleman threw the full game  and allowed only four hits, while all three of his runs were unearned. The junior struck out two and walked one in his outing.

Game two was the showcase of Southeast Conference baseball, as Washington?s Collin Zear held the Trojans without a hit through seven innings while Fairfield?s Graham Kuehl did just enough to keep his team in the ballgame. Dakota Kron paced the Demon offense with two hits while Zear and Ryan Loy each collected an RBI.

?Those were the two best arms we?ve faced all year,? Miller said. ?Baumann was throwing 88-91 (mph) and Kuehl came in and was spotting things up. He acutally had a better curveball than Baumann did last night. I thought we battled very well offensively against two very good pitchers.?

With the game tied at one in the fourth inning, Loy smacked a ball to the left-field fence that scored courtesy runner Jacob Hall. Kron also attempted to come around to score, but Fairfield catcher Kosta Papazaglou caught the relay throw from Jordan Reid, spun into the basepath and just got the tag on Kron for the out.

Baumann came through for the Trojans in the seventh. A sharply hit grounder kicked off the shortstop?s glove and the recovery throw went wide, allowing Baumann to advance to second base. The Fairfield center fielder moved up to third on a wild pitch and Papazaglou drove him in with a grounder to second to knot the game at two and send it to extra innings.

Kron singled off Kuehl in the seventh inning and Loy nearly extended the lead by driving a pitch deep into the night in left center, but Baumann ran it down and made the catch for the out. Alertly, the Demon retreated to first, tagged up and advanced to second on the play.

In the eighth, Cole Embree picked up a base hit to start the inning. The Demons attempted a sacrifice play to move the go-ahead run to second, but the bunt was popped up and Kuehl made a diving catch from the mound to foil the plan. The Trojans turned a nice double-play to end the Demons? threat.

Zear allowed his only hit of the ballgame, a single to Baumann in the eighth inning. Michael Gier stepped in to relieve the Demons? starter and retired Kosta Papazaglou for the first out, but Baumann did advance to third on a pair of wild pitches. The Demon junior hit Austin Simpson with a pitch and Cade Lisk ended the game with a base hit to right field.

After giving up only seven hits to the Trojans in the twinbill, the Demon head coach continued to see confidence in his pitching staff grow.

?Our pitching staff did an outstanding job for us last night,? Miller said. ?Tanner Coleman held them to four hits and Collin Zear had a no-hitter through seven, and tied 2-2, gave up his first hit in the eighth inning, and overall we threw a three-hitter in the second game. We are talking 15, 16 innings worth of pitching. We are very pleased with that.?

Despite the losses, the Demons know that Fairfield will be one of the biggest tests they will see all season, and Miller thinks they are learning how to win those close games.

?What a great atmosphere last night,? Miller said. ?These are two great teams that will probably be pushing for district championships and pushing each other for a state appearance. It was a great experience for us. We aren?t figuring out where we compare at. We know we are one of the teams that needs to be thinking that we are capable of advancing very far this year in the postseason. We need to think about what we didn?t do and continue moving forward.?

Washington falls to 6-4 after the losses and will host another conference foe in Keokuk on Monday, before No. 1 ranked Pella comes to town on Wednesday.

Wednesday (vs. Highland)

Zach Londberg pitched himself a great birthday present on Wednesday night, when the Demons went to Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids.

Londberg pitched a complete game three-hitter, as the Demons defeated Highland 6-1 in the contest.

?He threw strikes from the beginning,? Miller said. ?We really didn?t throw a lot of offspeed (on Wednesday). Once we went through their lineup the first time, we hammered it inside the rest of the game. It worked well, and that equalized their bats a little bit.?

Londberg helped his own cause in the second inning of the game, notching a sacrifice fly to score Dakota Kron.

In the fourth, Michael Gier notched a triple, scoring a pair of Demons to give Washington a 3-0 lead.

The Demons added to their lead in the sixth, with Londberg hitting an RBI double, and Gier knocking in another pair of runs with a single.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Huskies picked up an unearned run, but the Demons shut the door.

Kron had three hits and three runs scored in the contest, while Gier combined for two hits and four RBIs.

?(Michael Gier) and Dakota Kron both came up big for us at the plate,? Miller said. ?Michael?s triple late in the game really broke it open, and we extended the lead to 6-0. We had a lot of productivity with 10 guys getting on base via a hit.?

Tuesday (vs. Louisa-Muscatine)

Some of the Demons? younger pitchers took the mound for the team in a doubleheader against Louisa-Muscatine on Tuesday night, and ended up splitting the results.

In the opener, the Demons were struck by a few errors, and fell in a 5-2 defeat, despite a strong combined pitching performance from Jacob Hall and Matthew Wheeler, who only allowed five hits all game.

?I felt they performed excellent,? Miller said. ?Five runs in the first game, and only two of them were earned, and really we should have walked out with a victory in that game, we just had lapses defensively. Jacob Hall battled well for us, and he?s getting confident and comfortable on the mound.?

In the second game, the Demons only allowed three hits in a 9-3 win, with Michael Gier and Cale Hobscheidt eating up the majority of innings.

Offensively, senior Cole Embree had a pair of hits and three RBIs, while Kron notched two hits, two RBIs and three runs scored.