Linn-Mar cruises to Hawk Invitational Championship

MANCHESTER — Early this week, Linn-Mar dropped a pair of games to Cedar Rapids Jefferson, marking its third straight loss.

And while Jefferson is ranked No. 5 in the state, the loss still stung.

Any signs of those losses were nowhere to be seen on Saturday.

Linn-Mar (17-8) cruised to a 15-0 win against Cascade (16-7) in the championship game of the West Delaware Hawk Invitational, its fourth win in two days, to win the 16-team tournament in Manchester.

'It was a great game, absolutely,' said Linn-Mar assistant coach Chandran Lapel, who was filling in for head coach John Begley. 'We hit the ball well. Everybody one through nine hit in the lineup, so you can't complain about that.'

The Lions struck early in the championship game, picking up a run on an RBI from junior Elly Schuemann and a run from senior Elison Ollinger reaching home on an error in the first inning.

Linn-Mar repeated the process in the second inning, adding a pair of runs to take an early 4-0 lead.

And once they were up, pitcher Katie Smith said, it was easy to keep the team rolling. The Lions earned three more runs in the third inning and eight in the fourth to give them the shutout win.

'Right at the beginning, we started out going great,' Smith said. 'It just kept going the whole rest of the game.'

And while it was the strong hitting that stood out the most, Lapel said she was incredibly impressed with Smith's pitching. The senior gave up just two hits Saturday afternoon, keeping the Cascade offense quiet.

'I told her going into it that we're going to need her to bear down and pitch strikes, and that's what she did,' Lapel said. 'She kept the hitters off balance a little bit. The changeup was working well. She did a good job.'

And while the Class 5A Lions were the largest team in the tournament, Lapel didn't knock the talent. Linn-Mar had to get through Williamsburg and Independence on Friday, and survived an eight-inning thriller with West Delaware in the semifinals to reach the championship.

The bulk of talent in the field is what caught Cascade Coach Ken Weber's eye upon arrival, too. Getting to play different teams, Weber and Lapel said, only benefits their teams in the long run.

'When you come up here and see teams that you're not familiar with that you don't see on a regular basis — this is our first time up here at West Delaware,' Weber said. 'I think it's an awesome tournament. Coming in here, we were looking at all of these ranked teams.'

The win marks six straight for the Lions, and their eighth win out of their last 13 games. And after seeing a big offensive finish at the Hawk Invite, Lapel said she feels confident going forward.

'We're feeling good,' Lapel said. 'I think our bats are starting to come around very well at a good time. We've seen lots of different types of pitching, and I think that's preparing our hitters for the rest of the season.'