Going into Tuesday’s doubleheader against league-leading Osawatomie, the Mustangs knew they needed a split at minimum to stay in the race for the Pioneer League title. Sophomore Derek Bycroft made sure they didn’t settle for anything less.
Bycroft was brilliant on the mound for the Mustangs and was able to throw the first no-hitter of his brief Mustang career.
“That was huge, because they’ve got some really good hitters,” Iola coach Mark Percy said.
The sophomore lost the bid for a perfect game early with a walk in the second inning and then walked another to lead off the fourth inning, but seemed to get stronger as the game went on.
“Right now, I am really feeling good,” Bycroft said. “I’m locating my fastball well and my changeup keeps them off balance. My curveball usually starts working in the later innings, which really helps me after the lineup sees me once or twice, the curveball really keeps them off balance and guessing.”
Besides the two walks, the only other Trojan to reach base in the 2-0 Iola victory was in the fourth when Bycroft hit a batter, an occurrence that is becoming quite a regular feat for the right-hander.
“I usually do hit a guy,” Bycroft said. “My curveball is really what I throw inside to get the batter guessing, but hitting a guy isn’t that bad, every once in a while, because if you establish the inside part of the plate then batters are really limited from crowding the plate and they have to be ready for anything.”
Percy says the occasional hit batter is a product of the pitches Bycroft throws and is something they live with if Bycroft is pitching to his usual standards.
“We don’t call a whole lot of inside pitches with him, because his ball tails,” Percy said. “He throws it inside because his ball tails inside so much.”
Currently, not only is Bycroft pitching to those standards, but he is exceeding them.
His previous low for hits allowed was in his last start when he allowed just one hit against Prairie View at Riverside Park on Thursday.
The offense was able to scratch across all the run support that Bycroft required, even with just coming up with three hits the entire game.
A two-out rally produced the first run of the game in the second inning when junior Isaac Vink drew a walk and prompting stole second to get into scoring position for Kane Rogers, who drove him in with a single.
The Mustangs plated their other run in the fourth inning when freshman Cal Leonard led off the inning with a single and advanced to second on a balk.
He went to third when senior Ben Cooper drew a one-out walk to fill the bases and then scored on a fielder’s choice hit into by freshman Calvin Delich.
Iola’s only other hit came in the sixth inning on a single by Cooper.
GAME TWO
After the first game, Iola moved into a brief tie for first place in the Pioneer League with Osawatomie and Burlington — whom Iola split with in their season-opening doubleheader — but that was short lived as the Mustangs fell 7-1 in game two.
The game started out with plenty of promise as Iola was the first to get on the scoreboard with Delich getting a single to lead off the bottom of the first before he came around to score on a one-out RBI double by senior first baseman Coleson Wiggin.
Unfortunately for the Mustangs, those two first inning hits were over half of the team’s total for the game.
Wiggin hit a single in the fourth and other than that Iola was held off the base paths, except for a Cooper walk in the fifth and Vink being hit by a pitch in the seventh.
Meanwhile, Osawatomie was just thrilled to see someone other than Bycroft on the mound and Cooper ended up being the victim of their excitement.
“He didn’t have his best stuff with his control,” Percy said. “It took him a little while to get his curveball over, which is one of his best pitches… For Ben to be successful, he needs to be able to throw fastball strike, changeup strike and curveball strike and he struggled a little bit early with that.”
After a shutout first inning, Cooper got two out in the second frame before things took a turn for the worst.
Cooper walked the Osawatomie ninth-place hitter, but appeared to induce an inning-ending fly ball to center field from the next batter, but Vink tripped in the grass going back for the ball and as he fell, the ball fell in to score two runs on what was ruled a double.
The next batter singled and just like that the score was 3-1.
“Ben struggled a little bit, but we didn’t help him much either,” Percy said. “If we make the plays we should, they are going to get two or three runs, but that was still enough because we only got one.”
The Trojans added to their lead with four-straight two-out hits in the fourth inning, capped by a Chaseton Wiley home run to make the score 7-1.
“I’m disappointed, because I think when we got down we fizzled out a little bit and if you are a good team you have to figure out a way to get on base and come back,” Percy said. “We still have some work to do.”
Darius Greenawalt and Leonard were strong out of the bullpen, combining for three innings of shutout relief, but the Mustang offense continued to falter and the final score held at 7-1.
“We all know we can hit and we know we have really good hitters,” Bycroft said. “We know what we can do, but we just aren’t producing hits right now. I guess we aren’t seeing it well, but if we can start hitting, our defense is really playing well so that will really help us in every game (the rest of the season).”
The loss drops Iola a game behind both Burlington — who swept Santa Fe Trail on Tuesday — and Osawatomie in the Pioneer League standings.
“These two games tonight were going to be a big part of our season no matter what, because Osawatomie is one of the top contenders and so is Burlington, but the split tonight really helps us in the standings,” Bycroft said. “Hopefully we can keep winning and get back to the top.”
UP NEXT
The Mustangs will host Parsons next Tuesday at Riverside Park.
