Rebels soar past Comets

REINBECK – Taking pitches isn't exactly in the playbook for the Gladbrook-Reinbeck baseball team.
 
The Rebels would much rather show what they can do swinging the bat, and Thursday's 11-3 district final romp over BCLUW served as Exhibit A with G-R pounding out 12 hits to dispatch the NICL West foe.
 
G-R (21-10) advances to Saturday's district final against Don Bosco (23-8) at 7 p.m. in Reinbeck. The Dons pounded AGWSR 15-1 in five innings earlier in the day to claim their spot in Saturday's game.
 
Tyler Tscherter was 3 for 4 at the plate, with Walker Thede, Mason Skovgard and Bryce Schick adding two hits each. Bronson Wrage contributed a team-leading three runs batted in to clean up the basepaths.
 
"We like to go and hit," Skovgard said. "That's what we're up there for. ... Ty crushed it like he always does, Kyle finally got some good contact, Walker did great the first couple innings and the bottom of the order was able to get the middle of the order in toward the end of the game."
 
The Rebels scored first with two runs in the bottom of the opening inning, but BCLUW answered with a Koty Kruse RBI single in the top of the second.
 
G-R's second inning opened up the game, scoring five runs on six hits, which included four doubles.
 
"We had some good hits and we had some balls that were kind of in-between where they were going to have to make a play on it and fortunately, they fell for us," G-R head coach Scott Kiburis said. "We put it in play with runners on base and ... sometimes it's luck, but it's baseball and those are things that can happen."
 
BCLUW's season closes at 15-13 overall, on the heels of recently clinching a three-way tie for the North Iowa Cedar League's West Division title but having to swallow a bitter pill on Thursday night. The Comets will have to replace six seniors that played in the starting lineup for the final time on Thursday – Brad Barkema, Troy Dolphin, Logan Mann, Keegan Rhinehart, Blake Mann and Calob Keller.
 
"A lot of times it's not about what you lose but what you bring back," BCLUW head coach Matt Zoske said. "But this is a lot that we're losing, a lot of experience with pitching, situational hitting, not something you pluck off a tree. ... These guys fight to the end and they just want to keep playing, but unfortunately it had to come to an end tonight."
 
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