Hawks end drought against Nikes

BURLINGTON — Central Lee’s baseball team couldn’t get the hit it needed in the fourth inning of Monday’s game against Notre Dame.
The Hawks only needed one hit to get three runs in the seventh inning of the 11-8 win at Winegard Field.
Central Lee (16-4 overall, 8-3 Southeast Iowa Super Conference South Division) broke the game open with two hit batters with the bases loaded sandwiched around a run-scoring infield single by Kayden Calfee.
That allowed the Hawks to take sole possession of second place in the South Division and snap a six-game losing streak to the Nikes (14-9, 7-4).
“It was just coming up to the plate and taking good at-bats,” Central Lee coach Shane Weirather said. “That’s the key. Just continue to put pressure on teams by taking walks and then having good at-bats.”
Notre Dame had tied the game at 8 in the bottom of the sixth, but the Hawks had the final answer in the see-saw game.
Gage VanAusdall singled with one out, then Mason Sanders walked. Ward Fraise’s groundout moved both runners up, then Notre Dame coach Chris Chiprez ordered an intentional walk to Blake Davis. Bo Herdrich was hit on the arm by a pitch from Isaac Lehman to drive in Fraise. Calfee followed with a ground ball along the third-base line that Payne Prottsman couldn’t handle, bringing in Sanders. Davis then scored when Caedon Newton was hit by a pitch.
That was all Davis would need to finish the game — the hard-throwing reliever struck out all three hitters in the bottom of the inning.

Davis drove in two runs and scored three times out of the No. 3 spot in the lineup.
“He’s the reason we can do a lot of things,” Weirather said of Davis, who started the game at shortstop and was intentionally walked twice in the last two innings and scored both times. “You could see that with the intentional walks they gave him, but from a pitching standpoint, he’s one of the best in the state, and you can see that. We just have to play better behind him.”
That last sentence was a reference to the sixth inning, when a dropped popup and a line drive that got away in the outfield led to the Nikes tying the game. Davis, who struck out the first two hitters in that inning, struck out Prottsman to end the inning.
“There’s a lot of people who would hang their head after what happened in that inning, but he came back and threw strikes,” Weirather said. “He’s pretty confident in what he can do, and he keeps plugging away.”
Central Lee kept plugging away at the Nikes. The Hawks scored in every inning but the fourth, and that inning was one that could have haunted them.
Central Lee loaded the bases with no one out, but Notre Dame pitcher Landry Haberichter struck out the next three hitters to get out of the inning.
“We could have mailed it in after that,” Weirather said. “But our guys just kept coming at them, and some of the guys who didn’t come through in that inning came through later in the game. That was nice to see. But you don’t want an inning like that to happen, we have to do something to get a run or two out of that.”
The win avenged a 15-1 loss to the Nikes in the second game of the season, and was the first for the Hawks in the series since an 8-4 win on May 29, 2022.
“It's been a while since we beat those guys,” Weirather said. “They’re a really good team. But it it seems like we’re coming together here a little bit as we get to the end of season.”