Big Game Bob moves CCA baseball team within a win of the state tournament

CEDAR RAPIDS - Clear Creek Amana head baseball coach Bryan McCray woke up Monday morning, got a cup of coffee, did all of his normal morning tasks.

And still didn’t know who his starting pitcher was going to be a few hours later for the Clippers’ Class 3A susbstate high school baseball semifinal at Cedar Rapids Xavier.

“We were between two guys,” McCray said.

Robert Meade eventually got the nod, and the senior right-hander helped make his coach look pretty darn smart for choosing him. Meade scattered seven hits and shutout Xavier, 3-0, Monday night.

This is a guy who brought a 2-2 record and less-than-stellar 4.76 earned run average into this game. He’d given up more hits than innings pitching in five games this season.

But this is Big Game Bob.

“He beat North Scott when he was a sophomore. He beat Linn-Mar when he was a sophomore,” McCray said. “He was close to beating Liberty as a freshman in high school. He’s got the stuff, can be 85 to 87 miles per hour when he wants to. He can sit 83 to 85. When he’s in trouble, he can take a little bit off. He seems to like to get up for when the moment is brightest.”

Meade also owns a win this season over Cedar Rapids Kennedy, which will be playing a Class 4A substate final Wednesday night.

“Just attacking, right?” Meade said. “I don’t know, I attacked (with) changeups a lot. I haven’t done that a lot in season. But today it was just hammering changeups in and changeups away. That pitch really worked ... I definitely didn’t have the season necessarily that I wanted. But I’ve been able to get my head space right to prepare for this game. It definitely worked out for me.”

“He was down in the zone, pitched out and in,” said Xavier Coach Dan Halter. “He was getting a little rise on his fastball. But the biggest thing was he was strike one on almost every batter. We couldn’t get anything going, we were down in counts consistently. Then with two strikes, he was hitting his spots, outside and off the plate consistently.”

Clear Creek Amana (22-12) scored all three of this game’s runs with two outs in the top of the second inning against hard-luck Xavier starting pitcher Cohen Honkomp. There were four straight two-out singles, including RBI ones by Luke Higdon, Ty Fuller and Maclane Morgan.

This was the 10th win in their last 11 games for CCA, which plays at second-ranked Pella on Wednesday in a substate final. Pella beat the Clippers in the regular season, 10-3.

Xavier’s season ended 18-17. Meade said a player’s only meeting after a particularly poor performance against Marion helped refocus everyone.

“We weren’t having the season we wanted to,” he said. “All of our guys, we all talked about going to state. We had a big player meeting right after that loss to Marion, and we’ve really turned it around.”

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