OTTUMWA — For eight Ottumwa seniors, it was the last chance to make a memory at home.
Regardless of what it said on the scoreboard, the Bulldog baseball players were determined to embrace the final moments on Legion Memorial Field.
For Chase Thompson, it was an all-out dive to rob Lincoln Patterson of an RBI hit. For Nolan Heller, it was nearly driving a pitch over the fence for his first home run at Ottumwa’s spacious home baseball diamond.
Even in a pair of losses to Southeast Polk to wrap up the regular season, the Bulldogs found things to celebrate. Ottumwa strung together six hits in the fifth inning of the opening game against the Rams, scoring four runs to extend the contest, before finishing the night sending five consecutive seniors to the plate.
“Every day you play, you learn things and you take away things that went well or didn’t go well,” said Ottumwa head baseball coach John Jaeger after 16-4 and 14-0 losses to Southeast Polk. “The scores definitely didn’t reflect out capabilities for sure, but it also showed our guys that we’ve got things to work on. It’s all a learning curve. We’ve just got to continue to push forward.”
“The regular season is done. The postseason is upon us. We’ve just got to think of it as a new season. We have to flush what happened in the regular season. Records don’t matter now.”
Ottumwa learned on Tuesday just how costly it can be to give teams extra base runners and multiple scoring opportunities. The doubleheader was defined by a decisive number of walks and hit batters issued by seven different Bulldog pitchers that combined to allow 28 baserunners from Southeast Polk that didn’t even have to lift the bat off their shoulders.
While Ottumwa pitchers issued 20 walks and hit eight batters over 13 innings in the two games, Southeast Polk allowed just six walks and hit only one Bulldog batter. Southeast Polk brought home 16 of the 28 runners that reached on either walks or hit batters while the Bulldogs were only able to score runners that reached on hits during the doubleheader.
“We just gave up too many free bases,” Jaeger said. “That’s uncommon for us. Against quality opponents, you cannot give up those free bases.”
Errors also proved costly as the Bulldogs allowed a pair of unearned runs in the opening two innings of the opening game. Zach Lacquenant added a two-run double in the third to double Southeast Polk’s 2-0 lead before Kane Brockman cleared the bases in the fourth with a triple to right, pushing the lead for the Rams out to 7-0.
“We go as our pitchers go,” Jaeger said. “When our pitchers are on, we can play some really good baseball. When they’re not on, we dig ourselves a hole and it makes it tougher to compete.”
Ottumwa stung together six hits from six different batters in the fifth inning, extending the opening game after trailing 13-0. Thompson ignited the rally with a lead-off single and nearly extended it later in the inning, lining out to third base on a bid to cut into Southeast Polk’s nine-run lead with the bases loaded.
“I know and everyone else knows we’re capable of playing like that against anyone we come up against,” Thompson said. “I have no doubt we can compete with anyone in our substate.”
Thompson’s final play on Legion Memorial Field brought the senior face to face, literally, with the home turf of the Bulldogs. Lincoln Patterson’s bid for a two-out RBI hit in the top of the seventh was taken away in center by Thompson, who dove for make the catch landing face first in the outfield grass before eventually being helped back up to his feet.
“I knew I was going to be close to catching it. All of a sudden, I caught it and went head first into the ground,” Thompson said. “You just don’t want give up, even when things aren’t going your way. You might as well just fight to the end. There’s no time limit in baseball, so you might as well play hard until the final out.”
While Ottumwa began to find the strike zone with more consistency in game two, Southeast Polk (22-17) continued to put up runs in the night cap pounding out 12 hits while capitalizing on three errors that allowed six unearned runs to score in the first six innings. Noah Trexel delivered the biggest blow of the night, launching a home run in a tree beyond the fence in right field to ignite a five-run rally in the second inning for the Rams.
Heller nearly matched Trexel in sending a ball over the fence in the final scheduled game of the season at John Hart Stadium, launching a ball deep into the night out towards left field with one out in the bottom of the seventh. Heller settled for a double as the ball bounced to the fence, falling just a few feet short of the senior’s first varsity home run.
“I really felt like it had a chance,” Heller said. “It just died out there in left. That’s Legion Memorial Field for you. I’ve never gotten that close to getting one over the fence here before. That would have been a really cool moment, but it was still pretty awesome to get a hit like that in my final trip to plate here at home.”
Six of Ottumwa’s eight were the final six batters that stepped to the plate of the final 1 1/3 innings of the final scheduled home game for the Bulldogs. Ottumwa could still play at home in postseason play if the Bulldogs can win at Dowling Catholic and get at least one more upset in their substate either from Ankeny knocking off Indianola or Cedar Rapids Jefferson knocking off Iowa City High.
“It’s been an awesome time playing with these guys,” Heller said. “Southeast Polk is a great team that’s going to make a deep run. It was a good experience testing ourselves against them.”