Glenwood drops pair to Kuemper in Hawkeye 10

Glenwood recorded 16 hits combined in the two games but could never string together a sustained rally in a pair of losses to Kuemper Catholic in a Hawkeye 10 Conference double-header Thursday.

The Rams (2-4 overall, 0-3 in the conference) got down early and despite a seventh inning rally to trim the gap dropped game one 7-4. The Knights won the nightcap 5-3 to compete the sweep.

Cole Loeffelbein pitched five strong innings in his first career varsity start in game one. The junior allowed just two runs through five innings but ran into trouble in the sixth before giving way to Aaron Bertini.

“I questioned myself to let him go into the sixth because he’d never thrown that long before but we were trying to get as much as we could out of our two pitchers for the day,” said Schultz. “I let him go and he got into some trouble and we couldn’t get out of the inning clean so Cole ended up getting the game credited to him. But I was pleased with how Cole pitched.”

The Rams staged a comeback attempt in the seventh inning highlighted by Talon Stromgren’s bases clearing triple.

“We didn’t give up and kept swinging the bats so I was pleased with that,” Schultz said.

In game two, A.J. Slaughter started on the mound and allowed three earned runs while striking out four in 4 2/3 innings.

“He was throwing pretty well into the fifth. He had some trouble with hi-off speed pitches but when he figured those out he was effective,” Schultz said.

Bertini came on in relief of Slaughter in game two and was credited with the loss after allowing an earned run and striking out three in 2 1/3 innings.

Stromgren recorded three hits and an RBIs in came two. Mavrick Decker, Cade Van Ness and Drake Harrington each recorded a hit and a run.

In both games the Rams had base runners on in nearly every inning and hit it well enough, Schultz said, but they couldn’t get the big hits when they needed.

“We as coaches talked about that afterwards. It was little things where we got the same number of hits as them, we just didn’t put them together. That hurts. And then we had some bunting attempts go wrong on us and that hurts too.”

C.B. A.L. 15
Glenwood 3

Four errors proved costly for Glenwood in a 15-3 loss to Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln last Tuesday in non-conference baseball.

The Lynx, coached by former Ram head coach Bret Elam, smacked 13 hits off the Glenwood pitching staff and did not commit an error of their own in the win.

“I was kind of hoping they’d be fired up playing against Coach Elam after he’d been their coach so long and we just had miscue after miscue,” Schultz said. “We missed fly balls and pop ups and when you give their hitters that many chances they’re going to make you pay and they did. We didn’t need to give them more chances.”

Jakob King tossed three solid innings in his first varsity start for the Rams, allowing three earned runs.

Kolten Wilwerding’s third inning home run was an offensive bright spot for the Rams.