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Western Dubuque back in the Class 3A state baseball championship game
Defending champ Bobcats spot Dubuque Wahlert first 3 runs, rally for 7-4 semifinal game victory
Jul. 19, 2023 10:34 pm, Updated: Jul. 20, 2023 12:34 am
IOWA CITY — Funny to say, but Wednesday night’s Class 3A state baseball tournament semifinal game seemed to turn on a caught stealing. Of all things.
Let’s give the full details.
Dubuque Wahlert led Western Dubuque, 3-1, in the top of the fourth inning. Golden Eagles speedster Ryan Brosius, who already had two stolen bases and an inside-the-park home run in the game, walked with two outs.
Everyone and their mother knew he’d be on the go trying to get into scoring position. Only WD catcher Bradyn Delaney threw him out at second base, just the third time in 55 attempts this season Brosius had been unsuccessful.
Western Dubuque then scored three runs in the bottom of the fourth and went on to post a 7-4 win at Banks Field. No coincidence.
“Their whole team has faith in their guy,” WD’s Caleb Klein said. “He’s a dude, a great athlete, a great player. Throwing him out made a big difference. Bradyn did a great job behind the plate all day, all tournament, all year, actually. He’s done his job, as all good catchers do. That flipped momentum big time.”
“That helped a ton,” said Western Dubuque’s Jake Goodman. “Our crowd, our dugout were a little on edge the first couple of innings. After we threw him out, he’s really fast so throwing him out was a big deal ... It was a huge momentum swing. It could have been a different ballgame with him taking that bag.”
Western Dubuque plays for a second consecutive state championship, this time against North Polk (29-5) at 5 p.m. Friday. The bracketing came out perfectly in this case, as the Bobcats (35-9) are the top seed, North Polk the ‘2.’
“I told our guys that win or lose, we’ve had a great year. They can’t take that away from you,” Western Dubuque Coach Casey Bryant said. “People have no idea how hard it is to get to the state championship game. You have to play really good baseball, you have to have a lot of great kids who are really bought in and who play hard and who love to work. And we do.”
These teams split a pair of one-run regular-season Mississippi Valley Conference games. Wahlert (30-14) burst ahead early with a three-run second, highlighted by the aforementioned Brosius’ two-run inside-the-parker, a line drive that split the gap in right-center field and went to the fence.
Western Dubuque got a run back in the third on a two-out Brett Harris RBI single. He was huge in a relief pitching role, allowing just a hit and a run in four innings.
Then the bottom of the fourth happened.
Connor Maiers walked leading off and scored on a Hunter Quagliano double to the fence in left, ending up at third when Wahlert’s left fielder couldn’t cleanly pick up the hit. Quagliano then appeared to be an easy out when an ensuing one-hop chopper to third off the bat of Delaney followed.
Quagliano stopped halfway home and tried to get back to third, which he was able to do, when the throw home was wild. Delaney ended up at second base on the play.
A groundout then scored Quagliano to tie things at 3, with Colton McIlrath coming up clutch with a two-out run-scoring single to center. The ninth-place hitter had a pedestrian .287 batting average coming into this tournament, but is 4-for-4 with a walk, four runs and two RBIs in two games here.
“I knew on this stage, you need to step up,” McIlrath said. “I feel like I’ve done that throughout, and now it’s just keep it rolling Friday.”
Western Dubuque then extended its lead with a run in the fifth and two more in the sixth on a Jake Goodman two-run home run to left. Wahlert got a run in the seventh, but it wasn’t enough.
“We just started putting the bat on the ball,” Goodman said. “We started taking their pitchers into deep counts. Once we got one run, it all kind of started to flow.”
“Our goal was to just relax and play clean baseball,” Bryant said. “Because we played really bad both times we played Wahlert this year. They are a great team, and if you play like that, they’re going to beat you.”
Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com
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