Coe baseball team 1 win from American Rivers Conference tournament championship

CEDAR RAPIDS — The hammer, it is large and the Coe College baseball team has it in its possession.

The Kohawks just need to swing it one more time.

A 4-3 victory Friday afternoon over Buena Vista in a winner’s bracket game at Veterans Memorial Stadium moved top-seeded Coe into the championship of the American Rivers Conference tournament.

That allows the Kohawks (28-14) to sit back, relax and watch the four other remaining teams (as of late Friday afternoon) fight it out for the right to be their championship opponent.

Coe is the lone undefeated team in the double-elimination tourney, victorious Thursday over Loras. That means it has two chances to win once more and move on to the NCAA Division III tournament.

“It’s huge,” said Coe catcher Ryan Thoreson. “Going through the first two games and only using four pitchers is huge. Our top two guys (starters) showed up and pitched well. The bullpen’s been good. I think we’re in a really good spot for tomorrow.”

The first championship game is Saturday afternoon at 2. An if-necessary, winner-take-all affair would follow at 5.

“It’s big,” said Coe pitcher Ethan O’Donnell said. “Just pitching depth wise, right, it turns three games into five real quick. That helps us. We know we can rest easy knowing we only have to win one tomorrow, not five. But we can’t let off the gas. We have to finish the job.”

O’Donnell was phenomenal on the mound for Coe in quelling the A-R-C’s top offense. He lasted two outs into the eighth inning, giving up nine hits and three runs, all of which came in the eighth.

He wasn’t overpowering, only striking out three, but filled the zone and let the guys behind him take care of the rest. And, boy, did they take care of the rest, as Coe had three double plays, including one of the strike-them-out, throw-them-out variety.

A junior from Iowa City Liberty, O’Donnell’s only loss this season came in the regular season to BV when he got peppered to the tune of 12 hits and six runs in five innings. This was far from that game.

“They’re a really good hitting team, everyone knows that,” he said. “Yeah, I did struggle. But I knew that I have to have confidence in myself and know that if I live low, it’s tough for anybody to hit a low pitch in the zone. Keep it low and let my defense make plays. Hope I can keep them down far enough for our offense to get going.”

Coe played with the lead virtually the entire game, as Thoreson hit a solo home run to right field in the second. He scored in a two-run fourth on a Jack Allison RBI groundout, with Creighton Kreshel’s two-out double plating Tyce Johnson later in the inning.

Johnson hit a solo home run in the sixth for a 4-0 Coe lead. BV got back into it in the eighth, a rally highlighted by Evan Taylor’s two-run home run.

But Texas freshman native Xander Cloudy got the last four outs, including a strikeout looking with the tying run on second base to end it.

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Photos: Coe baseball vs. Buena Vista in American Rivers Conference tournament

“There is plenty of work ahead of us tomorrow,” said Coe Coach Steve Cook. “This is a wide-open tournament. I said that right from the beginning. You look at the scores here ... look how many one or two-run games we’ve already had in a day and a third.

“We’re going to have to come and win this thing, because there isn’t anybody that is going to hand it to us. Sure, you are in a good seat, somebody’s got to beat you twice. There’s a lot of confidence with that. It’s all laying there for us. But, honestly, my hope is these guys come with the same sense of urgency, the same competitive edge as today.”

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