ACGC Boys Defeat Number One Van Meter, 2-0!

The Van Meter baseball team came into Guthrie Center last night as the top ranked team in class 2A. The Bulldogs left town wondering what happened as the Chargers shut them down,

2-0 in the second game of a WCAC doubleheader. The Chargers were blanked 7-0 in game one.

Since the upset win is the big news, let's deal with that first. Neither team scored through the first five innings of the game, as Eli Kading and Van Meter's Casey Trudo locked horns in a pitching dual. Kading gave up just three hits for the game, while Trudo surrendered five.

The Chargers threatened to score in the second inning when they loaded the bases. Kading singled, and Reid Rumelhart and Marsh both walked. But the threat came to naught when Clayton Wardyn lined out to shortstop and Rumelhart got doubled up on the same play.

But ACGC did manage to score a couple in the third inning when Brock Littler singled and stole second base. After he advanced to third on a wild pitch, Miles Kading came through with a base hit to score Littler. Newell Rogers singled and also later scored on an error committed by the Bulldog third baseman to give the Chargers a 2-0 lead before a lengthy lightning delay ended the game in the sixth inning.

The Chargers came up with a couple of defensive gems in the last Bulldog at bat. With a Van Meter runner on first base, a line drive was hit toward Tegan Slaybaugh at shortstop. Slaybaugh snagged it and threw to first base for the double play.

Later in the inning, with Van Meter runners on first base and second, Kading and first baseman Lucas Marsh pulled off a pickoff play that got the Bulldog runner on first base to end the inning and preserve the lead and the win. The Chargers had beaten number one!

"We played our best game defensively," a pumped up coach Taylor Morris said following the historic win. "And our guys manufactured a couple of runs to win it. Eli pitched a heck of a game, and the defense played well to preserve the shutout."

Game one of the twin bill wasn't as pretty, with the Bulldogs shutting out the home team, 7-0.

They scored three runs in each of the first two innings and added a seventh run in the third.

The Chargers out hit the Bulldogs, 5-4, but couldn't get anyone across home plate.

ACGC threatened to score in the first inning when Littler was hit by pitch and advanced to third on hits by Charlie Crawford and Newell Rogers. But it came to naught when Crawford was forced out at second and Rogers was thrown out trying to steal second base.

The only other Charger chance to score was in the fifth inning when Cayden Jensen walked and advanced to second on Eli Kading's single. Jensen was caught attempting to steal second for the first out. Walks to Rummelhart and Wardyn filled up the bases, but a strike out and a fly out ended the Charger threat.

The split gives ACGC a 9-15 season record with a 7-10 mark in WCAC action. The Charger win in game two was the first over Van Meter since 2007.

Game one score by inning:

ACGC 000 000 0--0 5 2

VM 033 100 x--7 4 2

ACGC hiting: (AB-R-H-RBI) Littler(2-0-0-0) Crawford(3-0-1-0) Rogers(3-0-1-0) MKading(3-0-1-0)

Jensen(2-0-0-0) EKading(3-0-1-0) Rumelhart(2-0-0-0) Marsh(3-0-1-0) Wardyn(2-0-0-0)

Pitching: (IP-H-R-ER-SO-BB) Rogers(4.00-3-7-5-1-4) Bunde(2.00-1-0-0-0-1)

Game two score by inning:

VM 000 000--0 3 1

ACGC 002 000--2 5 1

Hitting: Littler(3-1-1-0) Crawford(2-0-0-0) Rogers(3-1-1-0) MKading(3-0-2-1) Jensen(3-0-0-1) EKading(2-0-1-0) Rumelhart(1-0-0-0) Marsh(1-0-0-0 )Wardyn(2-0-0-0)

Pitching: EKading(6.00-3-0-0-2-4)