For the second year in a row, the Post 15 Iola Indians have punched its ticket to state.
After suffering through a championship game where almost nothing went their way, Iola got back on track, cruising past the Post 45 Frontenac Raiders 10-4 Friday night. Iola played and beat Frontenac already in the zone tournament on Wednesday, winning 1-0.
The Raiders were just coming off a win a play-in game versus Baldwin when the Indians got to work quickly as an error in the outfield allowed two Iola runners to score pushing the early lead to 2-0.
Ben Cooper made it a first inning hat trick with a single as Iola scored more runs in the first inning of Friday night’s game than they did in the previous 14 innings of baseball.
“When you score two runs in the last two games, it’s nice to get three in the first inning, that’s for sure,” head coach Rick Vink said. “When we got that lead, everyone just relaxed a little bit. Everyone was able to get into the game and play their game. As a coach, that’s the best way to do it if you can.”
From there it was fairly smooth sailing. Indians starter Daylon Splane cruised his way through the first four innings, his first action on the mound in over three weeks.
“Daylon is just guts man, he’s just pure guts,” Vink said. “He may be small in stature but he has the biggest heart. He will fight you, he’s a bulldog and there’s not really anyone else that I’d like to have on the mound in that situation.”
After Iola added another three-spot to the scoreboard in the top of the fifth, Splane slipped a little, giving up his first earned runs of the season as three Frontenac players crossed home plate.
Splane battled through and with two outs and the bases loaded, he managed to escape without any further damage done.
“It takes a lot to get to Daylon,” Vink said. “He’s done a lot of pitching in a lot of situations in his career. He’s been the best pitcher on his high school team since he was a sophomore and he’s just clutch.”
Three runs in the top of the sixth pushed the Indians lead back to six and officially sealed the deal for Iola’s state hopes.
Frontenac flirted with a comeback in the bottom of the seventh but was only able to get one run across.
They now head to Marysville on Wednesday and take on Russell in the second game of the day.
“(Russell) got second in the state tournament last year,” Vink said. “I know they lost a few a kids but they’re back at state this year but we’re making a trip back there too. It should be a good matchup.”
Vink hopes that his teams experience with being on the big stage pays dividends in their return to state.
“This is the third state appearance for most of our kids and second for almost all of them,” Vink said. “There should be no butterflies. We should come out and expect to win.”
