Iowa high school state baseball 2024 championships: Friday’s roundup with scores, stats and more

The 2024 Iowa high school state baseball champions were crowned Friday at Merchants Park in Carroll and Veterans Memorial Stadium Cedar Rapids. Find all the scores, stats, recaps and more coverage below.

Iowa high school state baseball coverage

» 3A championship: North Polk, Chase Fjelland walk it off again

» Hlas column: Kennedy’s baseball team has a night to savor, and will never stop doing so

» Brackets: Updated, pairings, schedules and scores for all 4 classes

Iowa high school state baseball championship scores

Class 1A: No. 5 Lynnville-Sully 7, No. 4 Remsen St. Mary’s 1

Lynnville-Sully allowed just one run all week, outscoring its three opponents 13-1 and claiming its first state baseball title since 1988.

Lynnnville-Sully (29-3) struck early with three singles leading to two first-inning runs. It added four runs in the seventh, including Carson Maston’s two-run double and Lannon Montgomery’s RBI triple.

Corder Noun Harder was 2-for-4 with an RBI and scored two runs. Lucas Sieck pitched 6 1/3 innings, allowing just one run on five hits and three walks while striking out eight.

Reigning champion Remsen St. Mary’s finished 25-5 with its third consecutive finals appearance.

» Box score

Class 2A: No. 3 Underwood 5, No. 6 New Hampton 1

Underwood (29-2) gave up only one hit and won its first state baseball championship a year after a runner-up finish.

Starting pitcher Jack Vanfossan earned the win with 5 2/3 hitless, shutout innings and was 2-for-3 with a run scored and RBI.

The game was scoreless until Vanfossan doubled and later scored on Gus Bashore’s single in the bottom of the fourth. The Eagles scored twice in the fifth and sixth before the Chickasaws (29-7) managed their only hit and run in the seventh.

» Box score

Class 3A: No. 3 North Polk 5, No. 4 Sioux City Heelan 4

Chase Fjelland. North Polk baseball legend.

The sophomore infielder will be renowned for years around the town of Alleman and surrounding communities for his heroics this week at the state baseball tournament. So will his team.

Fjelland won the Comets a Class 3A championship Friday night at Veterans Memorial Stadium with a run-scoring single in the bottom of the seventh.

It was a bullet of a line drive over the left fielder’s head. If that sounds familiar, Fjelland smoked an identical hit in that identical spot to score two runs and give North Polk a quarterfinal win over Harlan way back on Monday morning.

Also 5-4.

“All these seniors helped me get to this point,” Fjelland said. “They all got on base, and I just did my job. It’s amazing. I can’t believe it right now.”

This was the second state baseball title for North Polk (29-6), its first in 3A. The other came in 2014 in Class 2A.

These Comets won all three of their state tournament games by a run. They won their final five postseason games by a run.

Four of them were of the come-from-behind variety. Three were walk-offs.

Again, legendary.

North Polk scored twice in the bottom of the third inning for a 2-0 lead. Heelan (34-11) came right back with a three spot in the top of the fourth for a 3-2 edge.

The Crusaders added another run for a 4-2 lead in the fifth. North Polk tied it in the bottom of the inning.

Isaac Zoske singled to right in the bottom of the second for North Polk, then Wrage was hit by a pitch and Hunter Cook walked. Cue Fjelland.

“If we played 10 times, we’d go 5-5,” said Heelan Coach Andy Osborne. “We are very similar teams. That’s what a state championship should be.”

Heelan actually outhit North Polk by a 10-5 margin. North Polk had four errors.

But in this tournament, the Comets put the ‘c’ in clutch.

— Jeff Johnson

» Game story | Photo gallery | Box score

Class 4A: No. 1 Cedar Rapids Kennedy 7, West Des Moines Dowling 3

Colton Duerling earned his second straight victory on the mound, tossing a complete game and helping the top-ranked Cougars claim their second state baseball crown and first since 2010.

“The greatest moment of my life,” Kennedy senior Nolan Grawe said. “That was absolutely insane.”

Kennedy’s vaunted offense leads the state in numerous categories. The Cougars have battered opposing pitchers. They faced a challenge against the Maroons’ Trever Baumler, a highly-touted right hander signed with Texas Christian University.

Kennedy’s bats responded with eight hits off Baumler in five innings, getting two each from Duerling, Scott and Hutchison.

All the runs needed came before Dowling even got on the board and the Cougars took control, breaking the scoreless tie in the third.

Jace Scott singled to lead off the bottom of the third. He moved to second on a groundout and scored on Grawe’s base hit. Grawe moved to second on the throw home. Matt Stoltenberg followed with a hard shot off the first baseman that ricocheted into the bullpen, chasing home Grawe for a 2-0 lead.

Kennedy pulled away with a three-run fourth. Jacob Doyle walked and Scott added his second hit. Owen Hutchison’s single to left drove in Doyle. Ty Donels, who hit a solo home run for a walk-off win over Johnston on Thursday, put down a sacrifice bunt. When the throw skipped into right field, Scott and Hutchison scored to make it 5-0.

The bottom third of Kennedy’s lineup — Doyle, Scott and Hutchison — provided four hits with two RBIs and combined for four runs.

Kennedy is the first Mississippi Valley Conference team to win a 4A state baseball title since Cedar Rapids Prairie in 2016. The Cougars also set a program record for wins in a season.

“We just kept getting wins,” Grawe said. “We knew our goal was to get this trophy. We got it.”

— K.J. Pilcher

» Game story | Photo gallery | Box score