Cedar Rapids Kennedy advances to state baseball tournament for first time since 2015

CEDAR RAPIDS — The exhale said it all.

It was deep, highly noticeable, and showed pure and absolute relief. For Bret Hoyer and everyone in his Cedar Rapids Kennedy baseball program.

“This game has gotten so tough for us to win recently,” the Cougars coach (and exhaler) said Wednesday night, after his top-ranked club beat North Scott, 5-1, in a Class 4A substate final. “Gosh, I’m so proud of these guys. So proud. Happy for them. They’ve been doing amazing work in practice, and I’m glad that they were able to show it tonight in a big-pressure moment.”

On to the state tournament for Kennedy for the first time since 2015. It’ll play a quarterfinal game Tuesday against Pleasant Valley (20-17) at 11:30 a.m.

If you didn’t know, the 3A and 4A portion of state is at Veterans Memorial Stadium this season. That means the comforts of not traveling, sleeping in their own beds, practicing on their own field for these Cougars.

“We’re really excited for next week,” said Kennedy’s Grant Mather. “It’d been two, three years in a row where we’d been stopped in a substate final. It feels amazing to finally break through that barrier and head to state.”

“I feel like we expected to win this game, but, obviously the job is not finished,” said Kennedy’s Nolan Grawe. “We’ve still got a couple three big games next week. So we’ll see how it goes. But I’m very happy about tonight.”

Kennedy (33-4) had lost a substate final four times in the previous nine years, including the last two. So when North Scott (24-15) posted a run in the top of the first inning, there were all kinds of here-we-go-again vibes.

But this Cougars team is one of the best offensively in school history and responded immediately with a four spot in the bottom of the inning. Needless to say, that was rather significant.

“You can’t put a gauge on that,” Hoyer said. “It was huge, especially with our recent history. We haven’t been able to come back and answer. Tonight we did. You saw how we just smoked balls right off the bat, and that’s what these guys have been doing all year. Even a lot of times when we were out, we made good, hard contact. They’re a good team, and they made some good plays.”

Ty Donels, Nolan Grawe and Matthew Stoltenberg led off with singles, all hard hit.

“We knew one run was not going to win this game,” said third baseman Grawe, who went 2-for-3 to actually improve, albeit slightly, a batting average that was over .500 coming in. “Our offense, we might not have showed it too much tonight, but up and down the lineup, we can hit. Our No. 9 hitter can hit a bomb, our leadoff hitter can hit a bomb. Our response in the first, it was just keep doing what we do. It was good.”

As was Mather’s pitching. No, check that, his pitching was great.

After that opening-inning RBI hit-and-run double from Cash Bowe, the right-hander allowed just three North Scott hitters to reach base: one on a single, one on a walk and one on a hit batter. He struck out 11, including five in a row at one point in the middle of the game.

“Pretty much all of my pitches were on tonight,” he said. “I did get a little wild out of the stretch, but my changeup was really good tonight, which was huge, because I don’t always have that. The slider was good tonight, my fastball was doing what I wanted it to do.”

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Photos: Cedar Rapids Kennedy vs. North Scott in Class 4A substate baseball finals

Hoyer has led 15 teams to the state tournament in his 35-year prep coaching career: one at Iowa City Regina and 14 at Kennedy. His Cougars won it all in 2010.

This club has the capability to give him title number two.

“Oh, absolutely. For sure,” he said. “But these guys know seeding really doesn’t matter. Throw the seeds out the window, and hope you play well.”

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