Pekin baseball one win from Des Moines

Pekin's varsity baseball team earned the opportunity to continue their season by improving to 16-8 overall with their third consecutive road-playoff win in the last nine days in an 11-7 victory over Iowa Mennonite Monday at Kalona.

The Panthers scored five in the first to jump out to a dominating lead early and then added three more decisive runs in the fourth to hold an 8-0 advantage headed into the back-half of the ballgame.

IMS somewhat challenged Pekin by scoring two in the fifth, one in the sixth and four in the seventh, however, Pekin's lead was insurmountable and became even more so when they added their final three scores in the home-half of the sixth to increase their hold to 11-3 before the 11-7 final.

Pekin's pitching started with sophomore Brady Latcham who earned the win after tossing the first 88 pitches over 5 2/3 innings and allowing three runs off of five hits with two walks and five strikeouts.

Freshmen Chandler Stull and Chase Stansberry each tossed 18 pitches a piece while combining to allow four runs, only one earned, off of one hit with three walks and two strikeouts as each pitched 2/3 of an inning of relief.

The offense collected 11 hits and five walks, led by junior first baseman Kennan Winn who was 2-4 with a walk, two doubles, two runs scored and four RBIs and senior/all-GTNS baseball captain from 2018 Tanner Bainbridge who went 3-5 with a double, two runs scored and one RBI. Seniors Caleb Comstock and Quinn Ledger also hit safely multiple times for the Panthers who are just one win away from a berth in the state tournament next week at Principal Park in Des Moines.

Next

Tonight at 7 p.m. in Solon versus No. 4 ranked Calamus-Wheatland who is 33-3 overall on the season.