Walk-off pushes Demons to split

With two outs and a runner on second, it was almost like a scene from a movie.

The Washington baseball team had battled to a tie game with Clear Creek-Amana, and Michael Gier reached base on a fielder?s choice.

A strikeout and intentional walk put Gier on second base, and brought up Zach Londberg, who entered the high-pressure situation with understandable jitters.

?I was shaking the whole time, and then I hit the ground ball hard,? Londberg said. ?I didn?t want to mess it up, so with all the adrenaline I just took off.?

The ball shot to second base, and a sprinting Londberg beat the play at first, while the CCA defense scrambled after the infield hit.

Meanwhile, Michael Gier just kept running.

?At first when I was rounding third, I didn?t hear anything from (Washington baseball head coach Nathan) Miller,? Gier said. ?Then the crowd was cheering (for the play at first), and (Clear Creek) was all in a big glob, and so I took off and started running. I slid on the outside and hoped for the best.?

The best is what occurred, as Gier slid under the tag, scoring the winning run, giving the Demons a thrilling 5-4 walk-off victory over the Clippers in the first game of a doubleheader, which saw them trail 3-0 early on.

?There?s a number of things that have to happen, and first of all, you have to have a full effort from the runner,? Miller said. ?We aren?t going to play with hesitation or fear this year, and I told the guys that we are going to take some risks. The throw was in the air on the way to first, and he beat the tag at home.?

The Demons weren?t able to be as thrilled after the nightcap, as the Clippers handed them an 11-1 loss in five innings.

In the early game, the Clippers took a two-run lead in the third inning, after a couple of two-out bloop hits scored a pair of runs.

CCA added another run in the top of the fifth, before the Demons woke up their bats in the sixth.

Londberg opened the scoring with a single, bringing home Ryan Loy, while Collin Zear hit a two-run double to tie the game at three.

The Demons took a 4-3 lead on a Cole Embree single that scored Jacob Hall.

In the top of the seventh, a costly error with two outs allowed CCA to tie things up, but the Demons recovered in the bottom half for the victory.

?I?m not going to call it a comeback, but it was a battle,? Miller said. ?Early in the game, two of their three runs we kind of gave to them off of a lack of communication and we learned from it and moved forward.?

In the second game, the Demons struggled to find the strike zone, issuing 10 walks in the loss.

The big highlight from that game came from a second-inning solo homerun from Dakota Kron.

The Demons will open conference play on Friday, when they host Fort Madison in a doubleheader.