Kirkwood’s Kyle Hayes hits 3 home runs in wild 21-17 loss to NIACC

CEDAR RAPIDS — Kirkwood’s Kyle Hayes received a good gauge during batting practice.

With a strong, cold wind that alternated between howling and whistling throughout the afternoon, he realized a slight adjustment to his swing could provide a power-packed punch.

“I kind of designed my swing to have a little bit of an upward arc, but not too much,” said Hayes, a freshman from St. Charles East High School in West Chicago. “So, I still have a line-drive swing but just trying to set my sights up a little bit and get the ball in the air. See how far it can go.”

His first three at-bats the ball traveled a really, really long way. Hayes capitalized on the conditions and belted home runs in his first three at-bats in the Eagles’ wild 21-17 loss to NIACC Wednesday at Kirkwood. The teams combined for seven home runs and tallied more than 30 hits.

Hayes reached base in five of six plate appearances, adding a walk and reaching on an error after almost doubling his season home run total to seven. He also scored four times.

“I’ve never hit more than two in a game,” said Hayes, who drove in seven total runs for 32 this year. “It felt pretty good to get that today.”

The 6-foot-1, 205-pounder crushed a pair of two-strike offerings over the right-center field fence. The first with two outs in the first gave Kirkwood a 1-0 lead. Hayes followed with a three-run shot in the Eagles’ seven-run second inning. He added another three-run blast, this time over the center-field wall just right of the screen as the wind died down briefly.

“Kyle is an elite hitter and he’s going to be a kid that plays Division I sometime down the road,” Kirkwood Coach Todd Rima said. “Today was a great day to hit. If you hit the ball in the air to the right side, it was going to leave the park.

“He did a great job. He had a great approach and executed the game plan.”

Rima said that he recognized Hayes’ power and that is a big reason he garnered the coaches’ attention. Rima praised his work ethic and his willingness to learn. His desire to be his best has led to success.

“We recruited Hayes to drive in runs and hit the ball over the fence,” Rima said. “He did that. He has a special talent. He works really hard at it. He understands his craft and he wants to be good at it. I’m happy for him when it carries over to the game.”

The Eagles’ first baseman had struggled with his timing at the plate, being slow through the strike zone. The emphasis was to load soon and start his swing early. Combine that with his focus on hammering the ball to the right side of the field and everything came together well against NIACC.

“I don’t necessarily look to hit the long ball,” Hayes said. “The way we practice and train is more to just hit the ball hard as opposed to how far you can hit it. Just hit a ball hard and see what happens. If it goes over the fence, it goes over the fence.”

Kirkwood (20-9) received three hits from Zach Sabers, who had a grand slam off the right-field foul pole in the second, and six RBIs. Noah Furcht hit a three-run home run in the fifth to give the Eagles a brief 15-13 lead.

NIACC (14-10) scored nine runs in the second and seven in the sixth, which led to its second straight win and fourth in the last six games.

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