CENTERVILLE — The Southwestern Community College Spartans (6-49, 3-30 ICCAC) wrapped up their baseball season on Friday after playing a pair of games in as many days at Indian Hills Community College’s Pat Daugherty Field.
On Thursday, the Spartans fell 15-9 to No. 9 Iowa Western Community College (45-11, 28-5).
“It was really, really fun,” Spartan interim head coach Blake Peterson said. “When you have a chance to beat a top 10 team in the nation, who, you know, they’re up there every single year.”
Southwestern trailed just 3-2 after the first inning, however, the Reivers bats got hot as they earned eight unanswered runs.
“It’s just a testament to our guys with how they’ve played over the last couple of weeks,” Peterson said. “It was outstanding to go wire-to-wire with a top 10 team.”
Both teams had hot bats between the fifth and eighth innings, and the Spartans had more runs, 7-5, than the Reivers during those innings.
“We made Iowa Western sweat a little bit,” Peterson said. “They aren’t usually in that situation. It was rewarding to see that we can frustrate other teams.”
The Spartans dropped a 13-3 tally to Marshalltown CC (14-37, 9-24) on Friday.
Eight runs were added to the Tiger total by the end of the second inning.
“They hit us around early,” Peterson said. “All the runs they scored, everything they did, was earned. We didn’t beat ourselves by any means.”
After adding another run in the fourth inning, Southwestern’s bats remained silent for the majority of the game.
“We were just trying to play catch up the whole time,” Peterson said. “That’s pretty difficult to do, especially in a playoff game.”
Dylan Bangs connected on a sixth inning home run which gave the Spartans their third and final run of the season.
“He was really good in both games in the tournament,” Peterson said. “Defensively he was fantastic both days and offensively towards the end of the year he started to hit his stride. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have more games to play because I think he’s a pretty dangerous player. Whoever picks him up is going to get a steal, he’s still uncommitted for next year.”