Cedar Falls baseball getting back to full strength, sweeps Linn-Mar

MARION — The numbers say Cedar Falls is a middle-of-the-road baseball team.

In the case of the Tigers, the numbers do not tell the whole story.

Cedar Falls has played close to .500 baseball most of the season after qualifying for the Class 4A state tournament in 2020. The Tigers lost several key contributors from that team, then lost a couple returners with early-season injuries.

“We’ve battled through some key injuries,” Cedar Falls Coach Brett Williams said. “Our No. 3 hitter (Gage Flanscha) and our center fielder (Max Steinlage) are just getting back so our lineup is starting to even itself out a little bit.

“Earlier in the year, we had kids hitting up higher in the lineup trying to replace those guys,” he continued. “We tried to tell them to just be themselves and now with the other guys back, everybody seems a little more comfortable in their roles.”

The return of Flanscha and Steinlage paid big dividends in Wednesday night’s doubleheader against Linn-Mar. Flanscha had six hits in seven plate appearances while Steinlage drove in four runs as the Tigers swept the twibill, winning the opener, 10-0, in five innings, then taking the nightcap, 16-4, in six innings.

The wins evened the Tigers’ record at 14-14 overall, 9-11 in the MVC.

Linn-Mar, which has had to play most of the season without senior Coy Sarsfield, an Iowa signee out for the season with a broken leg, saw its record slip to 11-19, 9-13.

In the opener, Cedar Falls scored in each inning to back the strong pitching of senior Zach Neese. He allowed only two hits over five innings in picking up the shutout.

“(Zach) is our guy, he’s our No. 1,” said Williams of his senior right-hander. “He pitched a great game. When you get good pitching like that, you are going to have a chance to win games.”

In Game 2, the Tigers put the game away in the second inning. They sent 14 batters to the plate, rapping out six hits that resulted in 10 runs against three different Lion hurlers.

“The nice thing about that big inning in the second game was the fact it started with our No. 6 hitter,” Williams said. “We were able to turn the order over and keep things going.”

Cedar Falls will likely enter postseason play seeded somewhere in the middle of its six-team substate.

Williams believes his team is coming together at the right time

“Pitching and defense win games,” he said. “If we can score like we did tonight, we could be tough to beat.”

Isaac Anderson went 3-for-5 in the doubleheader to lead the Linn-Mar offense.