Xavier bats smoking in substate win over Burlington

CEDAR RAPIDS - That thing about the Cedar Rapids Xavier baseball team struggling offensively. Forget about it.The Saints scored eight times in the first inning and destroyed Burlington, 11-1, in a Class 4A substate game that ended in the bottom of the fifth inning via the state's mercy rule.“Everybody knows that hitting is contagious,” said Xavier Coach Dave Schemmel. “You've got to start out, relax and get a couple of pops. When we went up 6-0 there without making an out, that just (took) all the pressure off us. All we knew then was that Jon just had to rare back and throw strikes.”Jon, of course, is ace pitcher Jon Keller. The

Seattle Mariners draft pick gave up three hits and struck out seven with a fastball that reached 94 miles per hour.For once, he wasn't the star of the show. Just about everyone was.Sophomore Mac Mattke had three hits, including a two-run double that ended this one. Matt Goiffon, Blake Helms and Nate Even had two hits each, part of a 13-hit attack."That was huge. Come out and put an eight-spot up in the first inning,” said Keller. “The team supports me great. Throw strikes, that's all I had to do. They really did their job getting a lot of runs.”Xavier (22-15) went through a stretch at the end of the regular season in which it lost five of six and couldn't buy a hit, especially a clutch one. But the Saints started coming out of it last weekend, scoring double digits in a double-header against Cedar Falls and adding eight more runs in a win over Class 3A top-ranked Davenport Assumption.This was a carryover effect, with Burlington (14-15) the victim.“Once you get one, it just seems like they keep falling,” said Mattke. “I don't know. It was just one of those funks we went through. I'm just happy we're out of it.”

“We were in a real funk,” Schemmel said. “We were just were not making contact, we were taking fastballs for strikes. That's just not the way we play. We got it going last weekend against Cedar Falls, hit a lot of balls hard. Tonight we hit a lot of balls hard. Even some of the outs were hit hard but right at them.”Keller, by the way, said his family is still negotiating with the Mariners. He expressed confidence that a deal would eventually get done.But he's concentrating on his high school season right now. The second seed in its six-team substate, Xavier hosts Muscatine (19-13) in a substate semifinal Monday night at 7.Iowa City West is the top seed and has advanced to a substate final Wednesday.Here's a short video interview with Mattke: