Saints getting hot at the right time

Just call late July “Xavier Time.”It's been four straight state baseball tournament appearances for Cedar Rapids Xavier, including a title in 2006 and second-place finishes in 2005 and 2007. A team that struggled during the 2008 regular season got hot in the postseason and made state despite a 16-22 record.“It's what we expect,” said Xavier Coach Dave Schemmel. “I think the kids know that we need to be playing our best baseball at the end of the season.”The tough thing this summer is that Xavier has jumped for the first time from Class 3A to Class 4A.They seed things in 4A, which was no advantage for a Saints team that started 3-11.Xavier has won 13 of its last 18 games, including a first-round substate upset of seventh-ranked Clinton on Friday night. But they only count your first 30 games for seeding purposes, meaning the Saints (22-17) are seeded fifth in their six-team pod, meaning it's another tough road game at Dubuque Hempstead (24-11) tonight in the 4A substate semifinals.“It's probably been to our disadvantage that we have seeding,” said Schemmel. “We just battled back (this season). But that actually hurt us when it came to our seeding.”Xavier rode the fastball of junior pitcher Jon Keller to its win over Clinton. Keller was clocked as high as 94 miles per hour on the Alliant Energy Field scoreboard.But he won't pitch tonight against a Hempstead team that swept Xavier in the regular season, 3-1 and 3-0. That duty likely will fall on righty Jared Kraus (6-2).It's expected that Hempstead, which won the Mississippi Division of the Mississippi Valley Conference, will counter with Ben Cottrell (7-2), who shut out Xavier in early June. The winner of tonight's game will play at third-ranked Cedar Rapids Washington in a Wednesday night substate final.Other 4A substate semis tonight include Iowa City West (22-15) at Cedar Rapids Kennedy (27-13). West swept a regular-season twin-bill and has won 20 of its last 23 games. Kennedy has won 14 of 15.In a Class 3A district final at Mount Vernon, Marion (18-21) gets a shot at a big upset as it plays fifth-ranked Davenport Assumption (28-10). Third-ranked Benton Community (32-6) plays Clear Creek-Amana (13-23) at Williamsburg.