Falcons Impressive in Gaining Split

Centerville -- Indian Hills recovered from a frustrating day on Monday to sweep a doubleheader from regular-season conference champ Iowa Western on Tuesday, thus gaining the Falcons some much-needed momentum heading into this weekend's Region 11 postseason tournament.

IHCC used a late-game rally to win game two, 5-4, at Pat Daugherty Field after claiming a 6-3 win in the opener.  The victories came after Monday's action, which was moved to Ottumwa's Legion Field because of wet conditions on the Falcons' home diamond, when Iowa Western shut down the IHCC offense in 4-0 and 2-0 wins.

Tuesday's sweep ended when the Falcons' Joel Booker lined out to right field with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 8th and Junior Santos came home with the game-winning run.  Indian Hills forced extra innings in the bottom of the 7th as Taylor Ostrich scored on Juan Figueroa's infield grounder.

In that game, IHCC scored single runs in the first two innings to take an early lead.  Iowa Western tallied a run in the 4th and three more in the 5th and it was 4-3 going into the Falcons' last at-bat when they rallied for the victory. 

Ostrich homered leading off the 5th inning, his second home run of the day.  The sophomore had a big three-run roundtripper in the first game, part of a four-run 3rd inning.

The two teams used a total of 17 pitchers with the head coaches looking ahead to the postseason and wanting to have everyone on the staff fresh for the weekend.

Matt Burnham, the fourth Indian Hills hurler of the second game, got the win.  First-game starter Sam Ross picked up the win with a strong relief effort from Derek Kawlewski.

The Falcons were held to five hits in game two with Ostrich and Edgar Lebron getting two each.  Ostrich also had two hits in the opening game and Caleb Ratzman, Lebron and Figueroa had two hits apiece.

Indian Hills struggled offensively on Monday, managing only six hits for the day.  They were blanked on two singles in the first game and had three singles and a Junior Santos double in the second.

Iowa Western scored a couple of runs in the 2nd inning of game one off IHCC starter Jake Stalzer and added single runs in the 4th and 7th.  Only one of the three runs charged to Stalzer was earned.

Christian Torres pitched well in the second game for Indian Hills, but was saddled with the loss.  He gave up six hits and one run in five innings.

Indian Hills had only two innings in the two games when they had two runners on base at the same time as IWCC pitchers permitted only four walks and six hits.

Next up for the Falcons (31-20, 15-9) is their first game of the region tourney in Muscatine.  They have the number-two seed and take on third-seeded Marshalltown CC at 2:00 Friday afternoon.  It's a double-elimination tournament with Iowa Western opening against Muscatine at 11 a.m.