PRATT — Nathan Whitcomb entered one of the biggest games of his life without his normal pinpoint control.
“I didn’t have a clean inning all night,” Whitcomb said of his AA American Legion state quarterfinal start against Concordia.
But, what he lacked in precision, Whitcomb more than made up for with some steely nerves, putting Iola two games away from a second straight state championship
The Post 15’s 7-0 win has Iola in tonight’s semifinals, where it will face Sabetha, which won a thrilling contest against Ellis, 10-9. Tonight’s game will start at 6 o’clock at Pratt’s Green Sports Complex.
Whitcomb took the “bend, but not break” philosophy to the extreme.
Sure, Concordia had plenty of base runners. The Blues had seven hits, while three reached on walks and one on an error.
Concordia batters came up 10 times with runners in scoring position. Ten times, they returned to their dugout without a hit.
Meanwhile, Iola’s aggressiveness on the base paths forced Concordia ace Nathan Gieber — the Kansas high school Class 4A pitcher of the year — to commit the game’s first key error.
After largely holding Iola in check through the first three innings, Gieber’s first sign of trouble came in the fourth, when Iola’s Trent Latta led off with a double.
Latta’s large lead from second with Derrick Weir at bat forced an errant Gieber pick-off attempt.
Latta never hesitated as the ball trickled into shallow center field. He rounded third at the urging of assistant coach Sherman Ashmore and easily beat the throw home.
“Trent really sparked us today, and Sherman was aggressive in sending him home,” Iola head coach Roland Weir said.
The sequence appeared to rattle the Concordia lefty.
“Our bats kind of exploded after that,” Iola head coach Roland Weir said. “We started getting some better swings.”
Iola missed on another scoring chance in the fifth, when Levi Ashmore’s line drive up the middle turned into a nifty 1-6-3 double play, but Latta opened the sixth with a single, advanced on a wild pitch and scored on Derrick Weir’s base hit.
Then the floodgates opened.
Jarred Latta reached on a walk, Braden Larson singled for another run, and Whitcomb’s ground ball bounced past Concordia second baseman Jordan Mehl for an error. Drew Faulhaber smacked an RBI single, as did Eric Heffern when his ground ball had a bad hop and wound up in left field. Levi Ashmore’s grounder delivered the final run of the contest.
“We got a couple of lucky bounces, but we kept putting it to them,” coach Weir said. “We did a great job with our baserunning.”
THE FIRST inning, meanwhile, was a perfect illustration of how Whitcomb’s night went. Concordia’s Bowe Behymer reached on an error to lead off the frame, then advanced to second on Mehl’s base hit.
But Whitcomb induced a ground ball by Gieber for a force out before striking out the next two batters to end the threat.
A single and stolen base put a Concordia runner on second with one out in the second inning before Whitcomb slammed the door with another ground ball and a strikeout. The same happened two innings later, as a Blues runner reached second. This time, Whitcomb got the strikeout for the second out, and a fly ball to end the threat.
The Blues a put runner on third in the fifth before Faulhaber’s nifty play at second on a ground ball by Gieber snuffed that scoring opportunity.
By the time Concordia loaded the bases in the sixth, few were surprised when Whitcomb slammed the door with another strikeout and a grounder.
Whitcomb finished his 111-pitch outing with nine strikeouts, but said his team’s defense was the key.
“I just pitched to contact, which is what has been preached to me all summer,” he said. “The defense bailed me out a couple of times.”
“Trent was a spark for us,” Whitcomb continued. “Everyone 1 through 9 is capable of being a spark.”
“We knew coming in that Concordia had a great pitcher,” Coach Weir said. “Hat’s off them. They were able to keep getting guys on base, but Nathan did a tremendous job of working out of a couple of jams. Nathan has had a fantastic season thus far for us and he has us in good shape the rest of the tournament.”
In other tournament action Thursday, Hays TMP eliminated Wellington, 6-5, while Westmoreland-Rock Creek eliminated host Pratt, 10-2.
Concordia will play Westmoreland today at 10 a.m. in an elimination game, while Hays battles Ellis at about noon. The winners of those two games will face off tonight after the Iola-Sabetha game in another elimination contest.
The consolation final Friday is at noon. The state championship game follows at about 2:30 p.m.
A second championship game, if necessary, will be at 10 a.m. Sunday.
Iola 7, Concordia 0
Iola AB R H BI
Levi Ashmore 4 0 0 1
Trent Latta 3 2 2 0
Mason Coons 4 0 0 0
Derrick Weir 4 1 1 1
Jarred Latta 3 1 2 0
Braden Larson 3 1 1 1
Aaron Barclay 2 0 0 0
Nathan Whitcomb 1 1 0 1
Drew Faulhaberr 3 1 1 1
Eric Heffern 3 0 2 1
TOTALS 30 7 9 6
Concordia AB R H BI
Bowe Behmymer 4 0 1 0
Jordan Mehl 4 0 1 0
Nathan Gieber 2 0 0 0
Braden Johnson 1 0 1 0
Skyler Hittle 3 0 0 0
Trevor Nordell 3 0 2 0
Trey Dubbert 3 0 0 0
Conner Eilert 2 0 1 0
Chanse Copple 3 0 0 0
Ryan Perkins 3 0 1 0
TOTALS 28 0 7 0
LOB-Iola 5, Condordia 10. 2B-Trent Latta. SB-Conner Eilert, Trrevord Nordell (2), Nathan Gieber.
Iola IP H R ER BB SO
Nathan Whitcomb 7 7 0 0 3 9
TOTALS 7 7 0 0 3 9
Concordia
Nathan Geiber 6 9 7 5 3 4
Braden Johnson 1 0 0 0 0 0
TOTALS 7 9 7 5 3 4
