Last week the Nodaway Valley/O-M baseball squad finished the highest head coach Dan Jameson thinks a Nodaway Valley team has finished in the Pride of Iowa Conference standings when they secured second place, closing out the league slate.
The Wolverines landed a couple of wins to start the week before taking a lopsided loss to close the week, but Jameson said much effort was put into keeping the team in position for a share of the title Friday against Mount Ayr.
Unfortunately a win wasn’t in the cards that night and the Raiders finished as solo champs of the conference.
Last Tuesday in Leon, the Wolverines beat Central Decatur 14-3 in six innings. Then they sank Lenox on the road, 4-0. Mount Ayr got a 12-0, five-inning win over the Wolverines Friday in Greenfield.
Junior pitcher Boston DeVault rang up 11 CD batters, allowing just two hits and one earned run. The next outing, Caelen DeVault, whose 83 strikeouts is second-most in Class 2A, tossed a two-hit shutout over Lenox, striking out 16 hitters.
“If we would’ve dropped one of the first two games we would have lost a shot for a share of the title, and things just didn’t work out Friday night,” Jameson said. “Boston ended up giving up three runs but only one was earned [against CD]. We had a couple of errors in the field. Caelen, only giving up two hits against Lenox with 16 Ks, that’s a good outing.”
Solid pitching has been a calling card all season for the Wolverines, but the bats have continued to come around late in the season.
Of 11 hits that NV/O-M had against Central Decatur, Caelen DeVault led with a 3-for-5 night with two homers, five RBI and a stolen base with two runs scored. Matthew Weber was 2-for-5 with a single, a double, three RBI, a walk, a stolen base and two runs scored. Boston DeVault was 2-for-4, had a single, a double, three RBI, a walk and two runs scored. Jase Davidson singled, drew two walks and scored a run. Paul Berg singled and had an RBI with a run scored, Chase Walker singled and had an RBI while Nathan Russell had a walk and an RBI. Tyson Ross singled and walked.
The Wolverines again had 11 hits against Lenox. They were led by Berg, who went 4-for-4 and had three RBI. Weber had one hit and scored a run. Boston DeVault scored a run on two hits. Caelen DeVault scored two runs on one hit, a sacrifice fly and was hit by a pitch. Davidson, Elliot Cooney and Nathan Russell all also singled.
NV/O-M only had four hits against Mount Ayr starter Jaixen Frost. Weber singled, Boston DeVault doubled, Caelen DeVault singled and Berg singled.
“The hits are coming around. We had 30 hits total on the week,” Jameson said. “That’s not bad. We had four against Jaixen, but we just couldn’t string ‘em together. He had 10 or 11 strikeouts against us, but he’s pretty good. We battled him. We fouled some pitches off and put the ball in play against him.”
Davidson started on the mound against the Raiders, going two innings, then Berg and Weber came in to relieve him, pitching two innings and one inning, respectively. Together they gave up 12 hits, nine earned runs, walked six and struck out one.
NV/O-M was 13-3 overall and finished 10-3 in the Pride of Iowa Conference as the last week of the regular season began Monday with a road trip to Underwood. The Eagles have been ranked as high as eighth in Class 2A this season. Tuesday the Wolverines were slated to travel to Winterset.
On Saturday at 7 p.m. the Wolverines open Class 2A, District 7 with a home game against Central Decatur.