Great Start for Cook and Falcons in Region Tourney

Muscatine, IA -- Outstanding pitching by Matt Cook and some timely hitting propelled Indian Hills to an opening-game win in the Region 11 postseason tournament on Friday.

Cook went eight innings, allowing only six hits and an unearned run, and the IHCC offense got three big insurance runs in the bottom of the 8th in a 5-1 victory at Tom Bruner Field.

The win moves Indian Hills into a matchup against regular-season conference champ Iowa Western in the second round.

Marshalltown had a good chance to score first, putting runners on the corners with one out in the 1st inning. But Cook picked T.J. Flanagan off first base and he was tagged out in a rundown. With Flanagan retreating to first base in the rundown, Miko Bernstine, the runner on 3rd broke for the plate. IHCC first baseman Mitch Osnowitz tagged out Flanagan and then threw home where catcher Francisco Perez applied the tag on Bernstine to complete the inning-ending double play.

Indian Hills took the lead with two runs in the 3rd. David Kroger led off with a single and went to third on a double by Jordan Patton. Adam Coleman's groundout scored Kroger and Patton scored on a passed ball.

MCC cut the lead in half with an unearned run in the 4th. Zach Glasgow's single brought in Jordan McCoy, who had reached on an error.

But that was all the Tigers, who brought a team batting average of .323 into the tourney, could muster against Cook. The sophomore righthander fanned six and walked only one in his longest stint as a Falcon.

IHCC stranded runners in scoring position in both the 6th and 7th innings, then finally got some insurance runs in the 8th.

After Cook had induced a ground ball from McCoy with the potential tying run at second in the top of the 8th, Indian Hills tallied three times in the bottom of the inning.

The first run scored on an error and the last two on a two-out, two-strike single by Perez. Perez's hit came after Yuliecer Arias had kept the inning alive with his own two-out, two-strike hit, a double just inside the first-base bag.

Adam Coleman was the only Falcon with more than one hit -- he had two singles -- and five different players scored a run.