We only have to wait six more days.
That is the countdown to Derek Bycroft’s next scheduled start on the mound for the Mustangs and if his last three pitching performances are any indication, you might want to mark next Tuesday at 4:30 p.m., against Wellsville at Riverside Park on your calendar, because who knows what the sophomore has in store for us.
The past three pitching performances for Bycroft have been a fascinating series of one-upsmanship. The only catch is Bycroft isn’t trying to out-do just his opponent or even a teammate — he seems to be in competition with himself.
On April 11, Bycroft shut out Prairie View with a complete-game one-hitter and the Mustangs won 10-0.
That is a career highlight for most pitchers and they can look back for years and reminisce about that time the almost threw a no-hitter.
But not Bycroft, because it only took seven days for him to one-up himself and throw his first career no-hitter last Tuesday against league-leading Osawatomie.
That brings us to Tuesday with Bycroft on the mound against Parsons — an SEK school and the school that ended Iola’s basketball season in substate and gave them a heart-breaking homecoming defeat during football.
Bycroft came out with a dud by the Bycroft-standard of pitching excellence. The sophomore allowed a run in the third and gave up six hits with two walks over six innings, essentially his equivalent to a meltdown.
“I really didn’t have my best stuff, but I just trusted my defense behind me,” Bycroft said. “I didn’t hit every spot, but when I did, my defense made all the plays behind me.”
Still a great performance, but just not on the level of the what he had delivered the previous two starts, so the series of one-upsmanship was over… but then with one swing in the bottom of the sixth, it wasn’t.
“The thing I like about a lot of our pitchers, but especially (Ben Cooper and Bycroft) is that they compete,” Iola coach Mark Percy said. “To be a good pitcher or a quarterback or any athlete, you have to compete. So anytime you go out there, and if things aren’t going great, you have to compete, and that is what they did and that is what they’ve done all year.”
Bycroft led off the home-half of the sixth by pulling a 1-2 offering by Parsons’ star left-hander Joel Forbes, who will pitch for Independence Community College next year, over the left field wall for a solo home run to break a 1-1 tie and give Iola the lead.
“I’ve been in a little bit of a (hitting) slump, but I squared that one up and it felt good off the bat,” Bycroft said. “I was hoping it would go out and it ended up over the fence. It was just a great feeling.”
His teammates certainly appreciated it.
“We weren’t really having our best game hitting,” Iola senior Ben Cooper said. “But Derek just found a way to help us win.”
Senior Darius Greenawalt made sure that lead held up by getting the save with a 1-2-3 seventh inning and Iola earned a 2-1 victory.
“Even with our hitting struggles, they know we are going to have good pitching and we have to play good defense,” Percy said. “If we do that, we are going to be in every game, we might lose some, but we are going to be in every game. And if you are in every game, you have a shot.”
GAME TWO
While game one was a tight game throughout and provided plenty of drama on the field, the biggest source of drama in game two was in the sky as fans watched the clouds to make sure the game would get in before the storm.
The reason for the lack of on-field drama was because Iola was able to jump on another college-bound pitcher Dylan Wisdom, who is headed to Labette Community College, and the brilliance of their own pitcher, Cooper.
“They are a really good team and its time for us to start sweeping really good teams as we start to look towards state,” Cooper said.
Iola got to Wisdom with three runs in the first inning with the big hit being a two-run double by freshman Cal Leonard to score Ethan Tavarez and Nic Zimmerman.
Senior Coleson Wiggin added another run in the third with a home run.
Three more runs in the fifth provided the final margin of victory and the game was called in the seventh due to the storm rolling in and Iola notched a 6-1 victory.
Cooper finished the game with a complete-game, going 6 1/3 innings and allowing just the one run on seven hits.
“I feel really good, especially bouncing back after last game (loss he took against Osawatomie),” Cooper said. “My arm feels really good and I threw a lot of strikes and let my defense make plays behind me.”
