The A Iola Indians American Legion baseball team simply ran out of pitching over the weekend at the Garnett Invitational Tournament.
Iola ultimately took bronze out of a tournament that started out with 21 teams.
The Indians started pool play on Saturday with two victories. The first game saw Iola blank Yates Center 6-0 due to Bradyn Cole?s shutout performance. The righty struck out nine and didn?t allow a single walk in the seven-inning game.
?He is without question the future of Iola pitching,? head coach Troy Smith said. ?His last two outings, he has 20 strikeouts and one walk. He has gone the full game both times. I mean he is lights out. He is unbelievable.?
Iola?s bats were hot as the Indians picked up 11 hits. The trio of Ryker Curry, Nathan Louk, and Tyson Hermreck had two hits apiece to propel the Indians? offense.
Game 2 of pool play started with the bats still firing against North Star Baseball. The Indians picked up three runs in the top half of the first inning courtesy of RBIs from Cole, Drake Sellman and Dillon Slaven. Iola would never trail and capped off the night with a 7-5 win which placed them as the three seed for the 16-team tournament the following day.
Iola hoped Saturday?s momentum would carry on to Sunday?s single elimination tournament. Despite doing early damage to themselves off an error from SS Kole Rogers and P Eli Smith walking in a run, the Indians shook off the morning blues and made it right taking the lead 4-2 after the first and never looked back.
Curry, Cole, and Sellman led the way with two RBIs apiece. Louk would earn the win, and the game would ultimately be cut short due to a run rule with Iola up eight after five innings played making the score 11-3.
The quarterfinals of the Garnett Invitational started with controversy. Originally Louk was selected by the Indians coaching staff to start, but the Osawatomie Raiders coaching staff did some digging into the rule book. The tournament?s rule was that no pitcher could make more than two appearances to more than likely limit wear and tear on the young pitchers arms.
Iola?s dugout looks on as the Indians took to the plate against West Franklin.
The Indians staff had warmed up a majority of their staff in small spurts in Saturday?s game against North Star to get them ready for Sunday. Team manager John Taylor said had they known the rule existed, they would not have thrown as many pitchers in the pool games.
The bush league attempt from Osawatomie backfired. Curry would take the mound for Iola and allow only one run through the whole 7 innings while giving up only two hits. The Indians would trail 1-0 until the bottom of the 5th when the bats finally popped. Selllman?s two RBI single gave Iola the lead 3-1 and put the Indians in the semifinal game of the tournament against Paola.
In the semifinal against Paola, things did not go Iola?s way. The first two innings saw the Indians allow seven runs along with five errors not helping the arm of the young future Iola HS freshman Trevor Church. A hole they couldn?t dig themselves out of. Eventually falling 4-14
?We didn?t play defense in this game, that was really all it was.? Smith said. ?If we had got off to a better start we probably could have beat this team to very very easily. Overall, I couldn?t be happier with the way we played. A 21 team tournament and we got third and probably should have done better than that.?
Next up for the A Indians is a double header at home this Wednesday against Chanute at 5 p.m. from Kauffman.
