Linn-Mar baseball team rallies past Iowa City West in Class 4A substate opener

Lions give up three runs early, score seven times in the final three innings for a 7-3 victory

Jeff Johnson

Jul. 12, 2025 7:00 pm

Linn-Mar's Colton Bergen (12) and Michael Burington (18) celebrate during a game between Iowa City West and Linn-Mar in Iowa City, Iowa on Saturday, July 12, 2025. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette)

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IOWA CITY - Not exactly the way you really want to go about things in the postseason. Except for that don’t-quit thing.

That’ll get you some places. Like the Class 4A baseball substate semifinals, in Linn-Mar’s case.

The Lions gave up three runs right away, appeared cooked but rebounded to score seven times in their last three at-bats and rally past Iowa City West, 7-3, in a substate opener Saturday afternoon at Duane Banks Field. The game originally was scheduled for Friday night at West but was pushed back and to another facililty because of severe storms and torrents of rain.

“It wasn’t the way we drew it up,” said Linn-Mar Coach Kyle Rodenkirk. “This time of year, weird things happen. That’s baseball. Tip your cap to these guys because they’re resilient, and they’ve been that way all year. They know what they’ve got to do. They battled.”

West (19-20) clustered a walk, a hit batter and four singles with two outs in the bottom of the first to go ahead immediately. The Trojans even had a runner picked off first base in the inning, leaving them loaded.

Iowa City West's Keith Moody (23) connects for an rbi single during a game between Iowa City West and Linn-Mar in Iowa City, Iowa on Saturday, July 12, 2025. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette)

But they couldn’t add on, despite having at least one baserunner in five of the final six frames. They left the bags loaded again in the fourth.

“It’s tough,” said West Coach Jamie O’Meara. “You’re always waiting for that timely hit. One through nine, you have confidence in every single one of those kids to come up with that hit.”

Linn-Mar (19-20) couldn’t capitalize on a second-and-third, none-out situation in the fourth against West starting pitcher Kyle Cherry but finally broke through against him with a four spot in the fifth. Colton Bergen’s double to right-center scored Kaden Harris with the go-ahead run.

He went 3-for-4 in the game.

“I knew that if we didn’t score three runs, we didn’t deserve to be here,” Bergen said. “So I just knew there was a lot of time. In the second and third innings, we had a lot of loud outs. All we needed was patience. We delivered.”

The Lions added two big insurance runs in the sixth on a Charlie Sarsfield RBI triple and sacrifice fly by Dylan Muszynski. Landon Sorg’s bloop double the way to right brought home another run in the top of the seventh.

Brody Faulkner was a huge piece to this winning puzzle as well, coming on to pitch in the bottom of the second and throwing five shutout innings in relief.

“Before the game, I looked at the lineup and I wasn’t even on the expected pitcher’s list,” Faulkner said. “Some things happened there in the first inning, we got into trouble, so I got called to go to the pen. I just got ready and competed.”

Chase Bopp and Brady Thoma had two hits apiece for West. Harris joined Bergen in the three-hit club for Linn-Mar, with Sarsfield and Muszynski adding two hits apiece.

The clubs split a regular-season double-header at Linn-Mar way back on July 2. Linn-Mar plays Monday night in a substate semi at Ankeny Centennial (24-13).

The winner plays Iowa City Liberty (31-9) in a Wednesday night substate final at Liberty.