Top-ranked Remsen St. Mary’s baseball staved off their first loss of the year and elimination from the postseason with a 2-1 victory in eight innings over Gehlen Catholic in the district final Saturday night.
This game was scoreless through five innings thanks to stellar pitching from a pair of aces in Remsen St. Mary’s Carter Schorg and Gehlen Catholic’s Connor Kraft. Each pitcher kept firing blanks until the top half of the sixth inning. The Jays got runners on the corners with two outs in the inning for Carter Kellen who came up with a pinch-hit RBI single to score Ryan Augustine. Gehlen Catholic head coach Kirk Kronaizl says Kellen’s growth throughout the year was evident in that at bat.
That put Remsen St. Mary’s in a spot they haven’t been in very often. They were down heading into the final two innings. The score remained 1-0 in favor of the Jays heading into the bottom of the seventh. That’s when St. Mary’s head coach Dean Harpenau fired up his team to make sure they got the job done.
The Hawks more than came through in the final frame. The Hawks got the bases loaded with one out in the inning for their three-spot in Cael Ortmann. He recorded a sacrifice fly to score the run and send us to extra innings. In extras, Gehlen Catholic was unable to score leaving the Hawks with a chance to win it in the eighth. That’s when Collin Homan came up with one out in the inning, and he sent the Hawks away with a district title.
Homan says his approach at the plate was just to get on base, and he more than exceeded that.
Coach Harpenau says that at-bat shows the trust that his team has in one another.
It was one of those baseball games where you wish both teams could come out a winner. Coach Harpenau echoed those sentiments applauding Gehlen Catholic on a great game and oozing pride for his team coming through when needed.
Homan says the game was intense all the way through, and it was special to win it in that fashion.
Gehlen Catholic ends up on the short end of the game and has their season end at the hands of the Hawks for the third season in a row. The Jays graduate a pair of seniors in Dylan Lehmann and Ryan Livermore. Coach Kronaizl says each brought a different thing to the field everyday making them a great pair.
This also ends the three-year coaching career at Gehlen Catholic for Coach Kronaizl. Kronaizl just finished leading the Jays to their first 20+ win season since 2015, but he says it’s preparing for all those games that he will miss the most about coaching.
Remsen St. Mary’s year continues with an unblemished record of 32-0. The Hawks now move on to the substate final Tuesday night at 7:00. Coach Harpenau says it will take a lot of focus for his team to get back to state for the seventh year in a row.
The Hawks will match up with West Harrison in the substate final at East High in Sioux City. KLEM Radio will broadcast the game live Tuesday night starting with pregame coverage at 6:45.
