Dyersville Beckman survives Interstate 35, 5-4

Eric DeSousa has great reflexes.“That's the second time,” the Dyersville Beckman pitcher said after he snared a line-drive comebacker for the final out of his team's 5-4 Class 2A state baseball tournament quarterfinal survival over Interstate 35 on Monday night at Principal Park. “Did the same thing in the substate final against Wilton in the sixth or seventh inning.”This latest clutch catch moves Beckman (32-10) on to Thursday night's semifinals against Cherokee (26-3), which won an equally thrilling 1-0, 11-inning quarterfinal over Gilbert. The thing is the second-seeded Blazers could have made it much easier on themselves.Beckman led going to the bottom of the seventh, 5-1, but made a couple of critical two-out errors to elongate the game aned make it way too interesting. Down 5-4, Interstate 35 (24-2) had runners on first and second with one out, but DeSousa (13-1) fanned Dillon Wickett (hitting .519 coming in) and won a prolonged battle with cleanup man Sam McKinney by reaching out slightly to his left and grabbing a line drive that appeared headed toward center field for a game-tying hit.“After that last out, I was just kind of in shock,” said DeSousa, who gave up three of his five hits in the final inning. ”I knew I caught it, I just didn't know what had happened. We won the game, and that's all I cared about.”“We survived. I guess that's all that matters,” said Beckman Coach Tom Jenk Jr. “I was real proud of the kids there. They could have really folded, let (the errors) really snowball. They didn't … Tough way to end the game, a line drive back to the pitcher. But we'll take it.”This wasn't exactly the cleanest played defensive game you'll ever see, as the teams combined for eight errors, four apiece, that led to six unearned runs. In fact, only one of Beckman's runs was earned. Interstate 35 had miscues in four separate innings, and the Blazers scored in all four of those.That's taking advantage. Beckman finished with nine hits, two apiece from big first baseman Travis Rahe and designated hitter Craig Kerper. Rahe, Isaac Willenbring, Dylan Slattery and freshman Nate Steger all had run-scoring hits.Yet it almost wasn't enough.“I've coached over 1,500 games in high school, and I still haven't figured out why stuff like (the near collaspe) happens,” Jenk Jr. said. “The beginning of the year, we were like that. We worked hard to get everything back, worked hard to get the defense going. That's what brought us here.“In the end, defense did win the game for us.”