FORT SCOTT — The Post 15 Double-A Indians’ season ended on Thursday morning when they lost to Marysville 16-4 in the first round of the consolation bracket in the American Legion state playoffs in Fort Scott.
Playing without four of their mainstay pitchers in both its tournament games, Iola fought tough of Wednesday, dropping a 3-2 heartbreaker on a Goodland walkoff hit. On Thursday’s the team’s pitching just ran out of gas, resulting in the lopsided loss.
With key pitchers Derek Bycroft, Ethan Tavarez and Kane Rogers attending an event for their church in Colorado, Iola knew going into the tournament that they would be short-handed until Friday, but if they could survive until then, they would get a big boost with fresh arms.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Marysville or Goodland or any of the other teams out here, they are good ball clubs, but there is no doubt in my mind that if everyone comes back next year and we have our whole team, that we can’t come back to state and win the whole thing,” Iola coach Rick Vink said.
After the deflating loss on Wednesday afternoon, the team was forced to turn around and play a Marysville’s team that only had four losses on the season entering the tournament.
With Daylon Splane pitching a complete game on Wednesday, the Indians were left with only one pitcher with extensive Double-A pitching experience. Isaac Vink got off to a good start with a shutout first inning.
Iola took the lead 1-0 when a Ethan Sigg bases-loaded walk plated Splane.
The second inning marked trouble for the Iola defense however. The team committed three errors in the inning and Marysville posted seven runs, only two of them earned.
After scoreless third innings, Marysville added another run in the fourth off of reliever Darius Greenawalt to make it 8-1.
Iola showed the spirit that Coach Vink appreciated so much from his young team in the bottom of the fourth to cut the margin to 8-4 with three runs.
Left fielder Keanan Badders had the big hit of the inning with a two-run triple.
“Keanan just had an unbelievable finish to the season,” Vink said. “The kid is absolutely on fire right now.”
Iola’s pitching struggled to find the strike in the fifth inning though with Greenawalt and Wyatt Suefert trying to keep the game managable and the defense made another pair of errors as Marysville ended the Indians season with an eight-run fifth inning and mercy-ruled Iola 16-4.
“Those kids came is and they did what we wanted them to do, but baseball will break your heart sometimes,” Vink said.
Despite the season not ending the way he would have wanted, Coach Vink is very excited about the future of his team.
“(Coach) Scott (Riebel) and I said that we were in a tough position taking over a team that won a couple state championships when they had a bunch of older kids, but we took over this team with a bunch of young guys and I don’t think anyone besides Scott and I expected us to go to state,” Vink said. “We said we had the talent to make it to state this year.”
