HUMBOLDT — The Post 15 Double-A team has played 12 games in the last nine days and the wear and tear showed in Wednesday’s doubleheader against Ottawa at the Humboldt Sports Complex where they fell 12-3 and 14-3.
In addition to the grind of playing that many games in the short time frame, the Indians were without one of their mainstay players and their head coach. Isaac Vink and coach Rick Vink were out of town.
With Isaac Vink unavailable and Derek Bycroft unable to pitch after throwing five innings on Monday, coach Scott Riebel went into Wednesday with two of his top pitchers on the shelf.
In game one, Riebel handed the ball to another one of his talented young arms with Ethan Tavarez.
Tavarez threw four innings and gave up just two earned runs. Despite his solid outing, the Iola defense allowed five unearned runs in those four innings.
Riebel pulled Tavarez after the fourth frame. With the team having only two catching options on the roster and the temperatures approaching triple-digits, Riebel was concerned about starting catcher Nic Zimmerman’s endurance.
“As hot as it was earlier today, I was afraid Nic wouldn’t be able to go both games behind the plate,” Riebel said. “I pulled Ethan a little bit sooner than I usually would have because we were planning on having him catch a couple of innings in that second game, but Nic said he was feeling good, so we were able to make it through that.”
Iola dropped the opener 12-3. Daylon Splane, Ethan Sigg and Bycroft had two hits apiece in the loss.
Splane started the second game on the bump for the Indians which further mixed up the Indian defensive alignment.
“That is the nice thing about this team,” Riebel said. “We have a lot of guys that are very balanced with their skills and have a lot of baseball IQ so I think that really pays off.”
Kane Rogers — who played center field in the opener before coming into pitch for Tavarez — got the start at shortstop where normally Vink would play when Splane pitches. Blake Ashmore — who was just called up from the Post 15 Single-A team on Monday — started both games against Ottawa at second base.
“Kane has played short for us before, so we knew he would step in and do a decent job,” Riebel said. “Blake played with us the other day at Fort Scott so we were confident in how he would be able to perform.”
Splane gave the Indians another strong start, but the team gave up three unearned runs in the second inning and after that inning, Riebel pulled Splane.
Tucker Fosha came into the game and threw a scoreless third inning and Iola was able to put up three runs to tie it up, despite not getting a hit.
Ottawa gave up four straight walks, with Sigg and Rogers’ walks coming with the bases loaded and a wild pitch with Lance Daniels at the plate allowed the runs to score.
Ottawa responded immediately with five runs in the fourth inning off of Fosha and they broke the game back open.
