‘Tough night’ against Waukee Northwest keeps Linn-Mar out of state baseball tournament

MARION — In a season with so many highs, the Linn-Mar baseball team suffered through one of its toughest nights of the summer at a most inopportune time.

The Lions fell behind 2-0 after two innings in Wednesday’s Class 4A, Substate 6 final against Waukee Northwest. Then three more runs scored on the third, all on wild pitches. Linn-Mar was not able to recover and fell, 8-1, to the Wolves before an overflow crowd at Oak Ridge Middle School.

No. 8 Waukee Northwest (26-14) moves on to the state tournament against No. 4 Johnston (33-5) at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Cedar Rapids. No. 6 Linn-Mar, which was seeking its first state tournament berth since 2017, closes at 28-11.

“We had some things not go our way tonight,” said Linn-Mar Coach Kyle Rodenkirk. “It was just bad mojo I guess. There were some uncharacteristic errors out there that we haven't made all year and we just gave them too many freebies. You can't do that against a good team like Northwest and expect to win.”

The Wolves got a two-out RBI double from Tanner Jackson in the first and added another in the second when Andrew Eastman's infield single plated Drew Fitzpatrick, who led off the inning with a booming triple to right.

Then came the rough third inning. Northwest loaded the bases with nobody out and all three runners eventually scored on wild pitches.

Jackson came through again in the fourth, driving home two more runs with a ringing single to left field, pushing the lead to 7-0.

Linn-Mar got its only run in the bottom of the fourth on an RBI groundout from Toby Cruz. Northwest starter Chris Petersen allowed just three hits in raising his record to 8-2.

As the Wolves celebrated around home plate, it was a dejected group of Lions that gathered in right-center field. They took a good 30 minutes to finally head back toward their dugout.

"This one game doesn't take away from the great season they had," Rodenkirk said. "That's what we talked about to them out there (in the outfield after the game). What this senior class has done for this program is help it to take a huge step."

That senior class includes three-year starters Jaxon Kramer and Jackson Mishler. Rodenkirk had special words of praise for that duo.

“You know Mishler and Kramer spent three summers playing really good baseball,” Rodenkirk said. “Not just them, but all the seniors brought some really great leadership to the field. I mean coming to practice every day was fun, it wasn't a job and that doesn't happen unless you have some really good kids. We really enjoyed being around them.”

A solid core returns next summer.

“We have some good players coming back and some more good ones coming up,” Rodenkirk said. “Tonight was a tough night. We really wanted to get over the hump and we thought this was the group we were going to do that with but, unfortunately, the baseball gods weren't in our favor.”

Waukee Northwest 8, Linn-Mar 1

Waukee Northwest 113 201 0 - 8 10 1

Linn-Mar 000 100 0 - 1 3 2

Chris Petersen and Jonah Sweeney. Kaleb Martin, Hunter Wildman (3), Tate Fassler (3), Ian Anderson (4), Colton Bergen (6), Caleb Mossman and Austin Andersen, Lucas Booth (7) W - Petersen (8-2) L- Martin (5-2)