Second-ranked Kingsley-Pierson baseball advanced to their third state semifinal round in the last four seasons with a 6-1 victory over South Winneshiek to open the tournament on Monday.
Kingsley-Pierson set the tone with a strong first inning. Evan Neumann struck out two in the top half of the inning. Then, the Panthers scored five runs sending 10 batters to the plate in the bottom of the first. Head Coach Taylor Doeschot says it was huge to score early like they did.
Coach Doeschot says the key to the big inning was putting the ball in play. He says that put the pressure on the Warrior defense who committed three errors in the first.
After the first error of the inning, Beau Goodwin had the chance to tack on more and took advantage of it. Goodwin drove in a run with a big triple to left field that continued the inning and fired up the Panther dugout.
Senior Evan Neumann says once that first error was made, the Panthers knew they had to make it hurt.
As far as run production is concerned, the rest of the game was very quiet. South Winneshiek tacked on a much-needed run in the fourth inning. Kingsley-Pierson responded with another run in the bottom of the fifth to get their lead back to five. Kingsley-Pierson’s pitching helped keep things quiet with Evan Neumann going five and one-third innings allowing just two hits, one run, and striking out six. Conner Beelner then slammed the door recording the final five outs in a row and struck out the side in the seventh. Coach Doeschot says both pitchers put in the work on the mound.
Not only did Beau Goodwin go 3-3 with two runs batted in, he was also the catcher backstopping those two pitchers. He says both are great to catch because they have strong control over their pitches.
Evan Neumann was quick to turn praise to his defense. He says even when he makes a mistake, his defense has his back, and that is because the team is so close on and off the field.
Kingsley-Pierson advances to the state semifinals with a 28-2 record. While the Panthers produced six runs and eight hits, a lot of them were scattered throughout the game and not bunched together in an inning. Coach Doeschot says the Panthers need to work on just making solid contact and not trying to do too much at the plate.
The Panthers will face off with Lisbon in the state semifinals at 7:00 PM on Wednesday in a game that can be heard on KLEM. South Winneshiek ends their season in the state quarterfinals for the fourth time in five seasons.
