VINTON – Grundy Center baseball stumbled early against an opportunistic Cascade team, cutting the Spartans’ record-breaking season short after a 7-2 loss in the Class 2A Substate 3 final at Vinton-Shellsburg Middle School on Tuesday.
The Cougars (23-12) advance to the 2A tournament in Carroll next week, their third state berth in the last four seasons; the Spartans’ campaign ends at 23-4, a school record for wins in a season.
Grundy Center committed five errors, leading to several unearned runs scored off Spartan starter Judd Jirovsky. Cascade scored three runs in the first and second innings and the Spartans only got as close as 6-2 after a Pete Lebo RBI double in the fifth inning, settling for just four hits and 10 runners left on base.
“Kudos to a good Cascade team, they didn’t make the mistakes we did,” Grundy Center head coach Pat Brown II said. “…You can’t win a substate baseball game with stats like ours, and the kids didn’t try to make those mistakes, but you just get caught up in a big game.”
Mick Hoffman’s leadoff double set the tone for the Cougars, who consistently made contact off Jirovsky to put pressure on the Spartan defense, either by forcing the Spartans to make plays or simply putting it where the Grundy fielders weren’t.
“[Jirovsky’s] a pitching machine, he’s too consistent,” Brown II said. “When he started mixing it up and got a little bit, effectively wild, throwing pitches up and out of the zone, it worked well for him.”
Jirovsky eventually settled in for 11 strikeouts, one walk, and three earned runs on eight hits, working 6 ⅔ innings before hitting his limit, where senior Ryker Thoren then secured a strikeout for the final out.
“We count on [Jirovsky] to be good whether he’s on the mound, behind center, golf, anchoring the relays in track, we count on him so much for everything, but he’s not Superman,” Brown II said, “things are just gonna happen. … There are some kids you put in a situation like that where they get slapped around and they’ll drag their arm or look to the dugout, but he just wants the ball back to put it across the plate. He’s a great kid and I’m fortunate to have him for another year, that’s a hell of a pitcher we’re gonna have back.”
Thoren had an RBI hit in the first inning to score Jirovsky; Hayden Geerdes accounted for the only other Spartan hit on Tuesday.
The Spartans were mostly patient against Cascade pitching, drawing five walks and earning three free bases after being hit by a pitch – but situational hitting proved as elusive as it was in the district final against North Fayette Valley.
“Goddangit, we’re five o’clock All-Americans in the [batting] cage and then we come out here, and their pitchers threw us off, did what they had to do,” Brown II said, “but four hits, obviously, we slumped, and now is not a good time to slump.”
It was the final game for seniors Thoren, Brody Zinkula and Dayton Myers, leaders of a Spartan team that won the NICL West with a perfect 12-0 record in addition to setting the new school record for wins and having the highest team batting average and lowest team earned run average in Brown II’s eight years of coaching at Grundy.
“It was a historic season, a great season, but the worst part of this is seeing Dayton, Ryker and Brody go,” Brown II said. “Those three seniors are going to be hard to replace. It sucks because you get to know these kids and love these kids, and it just sucks that they’re not going to be in the dugout next year.”
Cascade will take on top-seeded Underwood in a 2A quarterfinal on Tuesday, July 22 in Carroll. The 1A and 2A tournaments run in Carroll from July 21 to July 25.
JAKE RYDER SPORTS 