Unintentional hidden-ball trick does in North Fayette

DES MOINES - One of the grand things about the grand old game is you can watch it 1,000 times and see something the 1,001st you've never seen before.

So it was in North Fayette's deceiving 7-0 loss to top-ranked Carroll Kuemper in a Class 2A state baseball tournament quarterfinal last night at Principal Park.

The pivotal, unusual play came with a Kuemper runner on second and one out in the bottom of the fourth inning of a scoreless dual. Kyle Pudenz hit a hard one-hopper to third that NF's Tom Heying heroically stayed in front of and trapped against his chest.

But as he got ready to throw the ball to first base, he couldn't find it. Somehow it had lodged inside his uniform.

"He hit it pretty hard at me, and I was just trying to knock it down," Heying said. "Nothing I could do. I looked around for it, but it was inside my shirt."

Pudenz was credited with a gift single. More damagingly for North Fayette, Heying also was charged with an error that allowed the base runner at second to move to third.

A grounder that would have been the third out scored a run instead. An ensuing single plated another one.

"(Heying) did everything you ask," Hovden said. "It bounced up on him and he took it off his chest. Just like we wanted."

What North Fayette (30-15) didn't want was no luck and no-hit. Kuemper's Casey Berg had that latter thing going until Reid Nuss lined a clean single to left-center with one out in the seventh.

That was all the Hawks got. A right-hander, Berg (9-0) wasn't overpowering, striking out four, but there were few hard hit balls against him. The hardest may have been a twisting drive the other way from Jake Greco in the sixth that Kuemper right fielder Pudenz tracked down as he hit the wall.

"Just dialed in, throwing as many strikes as possible," Berg said.

The frustrating thing for North Fayette was it had been incredibly hot offensively, scoring double figures in seven of its last eight games.

"He was just keeping the ball down," Nuss said. "Getting ground balls out of us. He was hitting his spots more than anything. It's not like he blew it past us."

NF starter Brady Feldman (7-3) did an admirable job keeping a Kuemper team hitting .407 in check. The Knights (38-1) blew the game open with a five-run sixth against Feldman and reliever Lewis Guyer.