RICHMOND — One road win is great, two are even better. For Iola High’s varsity baseball team, the season started out about as well as coach Mark Percy and the Mustangs could have hoped. In game one at Central Heights, Iola won with its pitching in a 5-3 contest. In game two, the Mustang offense was at full force in a 15-1 win.
“We’ve got some guys back from last year, but we lost two key ones [Derrick Weir and Trent Latta] going into the season. Until you play a varsity game, you just don’t know,” Percy said. “We felt pretty good about it, but I knew it wasn’t going to be easy because we’re not where we need to be yet. But, I was pleased with them.”
The Mustangs got on the board first in the team’s first game of the season. Iola’s Coleson Wiggin hit a two-run triple that scored Drew Faulhaber and Ethan Scheibmeir. The next batter, Ethan Sigg, hit Wiggin in on another triple from Iola.
Central Heights got on board in the bottom of the inning, but Iola led 4-2. The Mustangs added an insurance run in the fourth inning. Brett Taylor made it home on a Central Heights error.
Ethan Scheibmeir started and finished the game on the mound. He pitched seven innings, struck out seven, gave up six hits and walked four. Faulhaber pitched a complete game in the following game. He went five innings, gave up only one hit, struck out one and walked two. The Mustangs won game two 15-1.
“I’ve got confidence in both those guys [Faulhaber and Scheibmeir], but like we talked about before — with basketball season ending and then spring break — we just haven’t gotten the reps,” Percy said.
“I was really pleased with them. Scheibmeir, in the first game threw a few more pitches than I would have liked, he was up around 100 pitches. Normally, I’m fine with that toward the end or middle of the season, but we’re just starting. They did a good job. Our whole goal was to come down here and get two wins and we did.”
The offense lit up the Vikings from the start. Iola finished with nine hits overall, and took advantage of walks and errors.
Keanen Badders finished the game with two hits and 3 RBIs. Faulhaber finished with one hit and 2 RBIs. Wiggin had a hit, two walks and an RBI. Sigg scored one run. Kohl Endicott had a single and scored a run. Joey Zimmerman had a single, stolen base and scored. Taylor scored a run. Ben Cooper had a single and scored two runs. Scheibmeir had two hits and three runs.
“I thought we had some pretty good swings and a lot of times when we didn’t hit the ball, we were getting ourselves out swinging at bad pitches,” Percy said. “That will happen, but at least we were aggressive and hitting the balls.”
Iola (2-0) will host Prairie View next Tuesday.
Mustangs start season with Central Heights sweep
