LA CYGNE — The Mustang baseball team has been desperately trying to shake off its early season offensive funk.
On Tuesday night against Prairie View, the team finally began to show signs that their bats are warming up as they cruised to a pair of big road victories, winning 18-4 and 15-5.
“We’ve kind of been waiting,” Iola coach Mark Percy said. “We had our 50-Inning Fundraiser, where we got a ton of at-bats on Saturday, so I think that helped.”
One of the most promising takeaways from the day was that the team was able to do that without one of its key contributors in the lineup. Junior Ben Cooper has come down sick and will be forced to miss at least a week’s worth of games.
“He’s probably going to be out all week,” Percy said.
Cooper is the team’s No. 2 pitcher and when he isn’t on the mound, he serves as the team’s shortstop.
Luckily for Percy and the Mustangs, a couple of the team’s younger players were ready to take on increased responsibilities.
With Cooper out, Isaac Vink took over at shortstop and stepped up in the batting lineup.
“We practice those guys at different positions,” Percy said. “We suited up (freshman) Kane Rogers tonight, too, so I feel good about every position having at least two people at it. Of course, when Ben is out that puts a little bit of stress on it.”
Vink was joined in the Iola middle-infield by Derek Bycroft, who has excelled early in his career. The freshman has not only been the Mustang starter at second base all season, but he has also joined Vink at the top of the line-up and the leadoff-hitter has been one of the Mustang’s best batters in the early going this season.
“He is a freshman, but he doesn’t look like it,” Percy said. “His confidence level and his baseball I.Q. help him play because he knows the game. That goes back to his dad (Luke Bycroft) and the traveling teams he played on. That helps us because we have enough to teach them as it is. If they know the game a little bit, it is just huge.”
Bycroft faced another new challenge on Tuesday with Cooper sidelined. The freshman got the start on the mound in the second game of the doubleheader.
Mustang ace Ethan Scheibmeir threw a complete-game in game one to give Percy a full-complement of bullpen arms to lean on if the young pitcher should struggle in game two.
Bycroft made sure that Percy wasn’t going to have to worry about making that decision.
The offense got Bycroft an early advantage and the freshman quickly settled in and pounded the strike zone with pitches. Entering the bottom of the fifth, Iola had built a 15-3 lead and the only question left was if Prairie View could get enough runs off of Bycroft to lengthen the game and avoid the 10-run rule.
The answer to that question was no. Bycroft surrendered two in the fifth and Prairie View had a runner at third with two outs, but he was able to buckle down and get a strikeout of the final Prairie View hitter to end the game in just five innings.
