Iowa City West outlasts Washington, 9-6

DES MOINES - A team of destiny? We'll find out.

"You hope so," Iowa City West Coach Charlie Stumpff said, after his team outlasted Cedar Rapids Washington, 9-6, in a laborious Class 4A state baseball tournament quarterfinal Wednesday night at Principal Park. "We'll talk about that in two more games. We're just happy to be playing at this stage. We have an awfully good team when they get it together. We can swing it a little bit ... We have enough arms. We have a chance."

West (29-15) came in here a No. 7 seed but also one of the hottest clubs around. The Trojans have won 23 of their last 26 games, offsetting a rough 6-12 start, moving on to play defending champion Johnston (29-13) in a Friday night semifinal that is listed to start at 8 but almost certainly will start much later.

Fate was cruel, meanwhile, for Washington (32-9), which had its 16-game win streak crash down. The Warriors hadn't lost in July, their previous defeat coming June 26 in the back end of a double-header with Cedar Rapids Kennedy.

"We wanted to keep that going into August," said Washington Coach Byron Schlotterback. "It just didn't happen."

This was a well-contested game but definitely not well played defensively. The teams combined for eight errors, with Washington's four making four of West's runs against starting pitcher Dakota Freese (11-2) unearned.

That ultimately was the difference.

"It's not a lack of effort," Stumpff said. "Both teams just played their tails off. You're going to get that in high school sometimes."

"I don't know if we were tight. I think everybody was ready to play," said Washington's Chad Christensen, who ended his splendid career going 1-for-4, including a three-run double that brought Washington within striking distance. In fact, Washington had the tying run at the plate in the seventh, but West reliever Josh DeBoer got Ryan Brown to fly to right to end this two and a half-hour game at 11:15 p.m.

"Dakota came out and competed, like he always does," Christensen said. "We gave it our all. It's baseball, and sometimes things don't go your way. We had some opportunities to make some plays and didn't. That's just the way it goes sometimes."

A bloop two-run double just fair down the right-field line by Chris Lauer gave West a 2-0 lead in the second inning. It was a 3-1 Trojans lead in the fourth when Washington fell completely apart defensively, making three errors that led to three more West runs.

It was a 7-3 game in the sixth when West's Neil Madsen came through against reliever Christensen with a two-run triple to right that proved pivotal. Wash greeted West reliever Ryan Brown with a walk and three hits, Christensen's bases-clearing liner making it a 9-6 game. A great diving catch in center by DeBoer ended the inning and prevented Washington from scoring another run and bringing the tying run to the plate.

"We knew we had a chance all along," Christensen said. "We've come back plenty of times this season. We have plenty of bats in our lineup."

DeBoer came on to pitch the seventh for West. He allowed a one-out Zach Rogers double and two-out A.J. Puk walk but skirted any further damage.

Sophomore Ryan Rumpf (8-3) threw the first five innings for West to get the win. He allowed six hits and one earned run.

Another key to this one was the Trojan's run game, which produced seven stolen bases.

"Once you get on base, you want to mess with the pitcher's head," Madsen said. "Any mistake or error, we tried to get on top of it."

Washington actually outhit West by a 10-7 margin. Rogers and Ryan Murray had two hits apiece for Wash.

Freese came into the game with an earned run average under 1.00, but gave up five hits and seven runs (three earned) in five innings. Like Rumpf, he's also a sophomore.

"I just feel really bad for pitching the way I did and letting the team down," Freese said.