New London baseball dumps Danville

NEW LONDON — When Danville came in to New London for a regular season matchup in June, it took all the Tigers could give to avoid an upset. In Tuesday night’s regional quarterfinal, New London made sure that wouldn’t happen again.

Less than one month after a June 21 meeting that saw the Tigers beat the Bears in extra innings, No. 7 New London took the lumber to their chief rivals, blasting them 11-1 in five innings to coast to the Class 1A Substate 5 semifinals.

The Tigers wasted no time, putting up four runs in the first inning to take an early advantage. That’s all the run support the pitching staff would need, but it wasn’t all they would get.

After one run from Danville in the top of the second cut New London’s lead to 4-1, the Tigers would close out the scoring with seven-straight runs, including a five-spot in the fourth to put the game on ice.

Tucker Gibbar had a big night at the plate, going 2-for-3 with four RBIs. Carter Allen knocked in two runs. Josh Catala, Hecniel Rodriguez and Camden Kasel each plated one.

Rodriguez started the game on the bump for the Tigers, and he held Danville to just one earned run on two hits and one walk, while striking out six batters over four innings of work. Kooper Schulte came in to throw a scoreless fifth.

The Tigers moved to 24-1 with the victory. They will host a Sigourney team on Saturday that rallied from a 7-1 deficit to knock out Notre Dame on Tuesday. Sigourney currently sits at 19-5 this season.

The winner of Saturday’s game in New London will play either Martensdale-St. Mary’s (22-7) or Mount Ayr (20-4) in the substate final on Tuesday.