Small ball but big win totals for Alburnett baseball team

ALBURNETT — Launch angle, exit velocity, the distance a ball was hit. Those things just aren’t part of the vernacular at Alburnett.

Leave that stuff to the major leaguers, the guys who are pros.

This Pirates baseball team has one home run all summer, yet it picked up its 25th win this season Tuesday night in a Class 2A district semifinal. There is more than one way to be successful.

“We’re a small-ball team, and we know that,” sophomore first baseman Hunter Sauer said, after his squeeze-bunt single scored the go-ahead run in the fifth inning as Alburnett literally squeezed past Jesup, 4-3. “It’s the same thing as in another sport. A win’s a win, a hit’s a hit. Putting pressure on the defense is really important for us.”

Alburnett (25-11) plays a district final Saturday at a site to be determined against Sumner-Fredericksburg (21-4). The Cougars built a big lead and held on to knock off pesky West Liberty, 8-5, in Tuesday night’s district doubleheader nightcap.

Alburnett took a 3-1 lead in its game with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth. Sauers, attempting to come home on another squeeze play scored from third after a pitch from Jesup’s Ryan Treptow bounced in the dirt and got far enough away from catcher Kile Bucknell for him to slide home safely.

Then it was a wild pitch that scored Cooper Foster. The Pirates played from on top early with a run in the first that came home on the ever-exciting run-scoring groundout.

They never ask you how you score, just if you do.

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“We’ve got a bunting machine right over here. That’s all we do right here,” Alburnett’s Karson Rose said, pointing to an area adjacent to the team’s dugout. “That’s all it’s for, working on putting bunts down on the third-base line and the first-base line. That’s kind of what we do, small ball. We don’t try and hit home runs. We get singles, get people over, bunt and run the bases, all that type of stuff.”

Rose pitched a complete game, allowing eight hits but only one earned run. He didn’t walk anyone, which was crucial, making pitches late in the game when Jesup (17-10) had tying and/or go-ahead runners in scoring position.

Bucknell had two hits, including a two-run single for the J-Hawks. The teams ironically played just days ago in a regular-season finale at Alburnett that the Pirates also won by a run, 6-5.

“There were a lot of similarities in the games,” Rose said. “The pitching was pretty much the same, though we obviously didn’t throw the same pitcher. But overall the approaches were pretty much the same. As a pitching staff, we attacked every hitter the same. Not a whole lot of differences.”

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Photos: Alburnett vs. Jesup in Class 2A district baseball semifinals

Tate Nuss had a two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the second to give Sumner-Fredericksburg a 3-0 lead on West Liberty. A Ty VanEngelenburg RBI hit an inning later made it a 4-0 game, then his two-run single over first base made it 8-2 Cougars in the fourth.

West Liberty (15-14) scored three runs in the fifth to make it an 8-5 game, and the Comets were able to get the tying run on base a couple of times, but that was it.

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