Grundy Center baseball continued an exceptional start to this season with a 9-0 win over East Marshall on Thursday night at the George Wilhelm Sports Complex in Grundy Center.

Spartan junior Judd Jirovsky was dominant in his first career start, throwing a two-hit shutout with 15 strikeouts and no walks and turning the Mustangs away with only 85 pitches thrown. The Spartans improved to 8-0 on the season.

Jirovsky has thrown mostly relief innings in these last three seasons, including two 1/3 in a win against Oelwein earlier this season.

Grundy Center head coach Pat Brown II said that’s a product of Jirovsky’s skill at shortstop bolstering the Spartan defense.

“We like to keep him there and save him for those last three or six outs,” Brown II said. “He’s not typically a starter, but he’s proved tonight that he can be a really good one.”

After allowing a two-out single to Jackson Busch in the second inning, Jirovsky retired the next 13 batters in a row, 10 by strikeout. Blake Neuroth led off the seventh inning with a single before Jirovsky sent away the next three Mustangs in order, including two strikeouts to close the door.

The Mustangs took two of three from the Spartans last season, including a doubleheader split at Grundy’s place.

“I’ve been dealing with some arm pain in these last couple years, but this felt really good with a nice home crowd and a conference rival like East Marshall,” Jirovsky said. “They’ve gotten us a couple times in the past, so this was a big game for us, and a little bit of that adrenaline helps, too. Felt really good today.”

Jirovsky got plenty of offensive help from a Grundy Center team averaging 11 runs per game in this hot start to the summer. Ryder Slifer was 3-for-4 with a double and four runs batted in; Ryker Thoren added a couple RBI and scored twice, as did Pete Lebo and Brody Zinkula.

“The difference between this team and teams in years’ past so far has definitely been our team batting average,” Jirovsky said. “We’re looking for quality at-bats, whether we can see a lot of pitches or hit a ball hard, that’s all we’re looking for, and it’s showing out there.”

Grundy Center started the week with a dominant doubleheader against South Hardin, winning 17-2 and 13-5, then went to Jesup for a 19-8 win.

It’s the best start for the Spartans since Brown II took over before the 2018 season; the head coach recently surpassed the 100-win milestone for his coaching career.

“The big part of it is, we’ve got three seniors that like to play baseball,” Brown Jr. said of co-captains Thoren, Zinkula and Dayton Myers. “They want to be here, and everybody else wants to be here and we’re having fun. When you’re winning, it’s fun. Right now, we’re doing our best to manage the kids, manage their bodies, manage their time, keep it fun, and as long as we do that, they’re going to give max effort. This whole thing’s going to slow down … but we’re going to relish every bit of it we can.”

A big test awaits on Monday at home against Dike-New Hartford, also off to an unbeaten start at 7-0. It’s the start of another busy week for the Spartans: Aplington-Parkersburg comes to town on Tuesday, followed by a road test at Union on Wednesday and back home to resume NICL West play with AGWSR on Thursday.