JUCO baseball: Eagles soar past Warriors

CEDAR RAPIDS — Even four days later, it was a day the Indian Hills baseball team couldn't forget.

Even after a 10-4 Iowa Community College Athletic Conference loss to Kirkwood, a game that featured a near cycle hit by Eagle freshman Ty Andrews, it was a record-setting weekend by IHCC freshman Kevin Ramos that was still on the mind of his Warrior teammates.

"Kevin works so hard. He's a great human being," Indian Hills sophomore infielder Tijmen Nagel said. "I was really happy for Kevin. It was awesome to see. It was incredible. I've never seen anything like that in my life."

Ramos earned NJCAA National Player of the Week honors after putting together an effort that no Warrior baseball player has ever produced. The Warrior freshman hammered four home runs in a single game, going 5-5 with five runs driven in during IHCC's 9-4 win over Northeast in the second game of a regional doubleheader on Saturday.

Overall, Ramos went 8-8 against the Hawks in the first two games of this past weekend's regional series with five home runs along with a double and a triple and was 11-16 for the week with six total homers dating back to a three-run blast in IHCC's regional-opening 11-9 win over Ellsworth back on Mar. 17 and entered Wednesday's game at Kirkwood batting .640 over the previous eight Warrior games.

"That five-game stretch he had last week is pretty impressive," Indian Hills head baseball coach Matthew Torrez said of Ramos. "I've seen players hit three home runs in a game before, but what Kevin did last week was pretty eye-popping. Guys just get in a zone and the baseball is really big."

Word obviously got around about Ramos. Rather than trying to cool off the bat of the Warrior freshman, Kirkwood pitchers took the bat out his hands hitting Ramos twice and issuing a walk, allowing Ramos to reach in three of his four trips to the plate on Wednesday.

"I was talking to my teammates and coaches about it," Ramos said. "That's a lot of respect I was being shown. That's pretty amazing."

Ultimately, Indian Hills needed a powerful day at the plate to completely counter the early strikes by Kirkwood (20-9, 5-1 ICCAC) on Wednesday. Both Andrews and Andrew Carroll sent balls deep to center field in the opening inning driving in three combined runs with the two extra-base hits to open a 3-0 lead after just one inning.

"We've got to keep the game tight to win the way we play," Torrez said. "We're used to tight baseball games. We play those and we can win those type of games. We're not doing enough damage at the plate right now to really outslug the other teams. We've got to be able to do some different things and create runs a different way."

It was hard to create anything off Kirkwood starting pitcher Boede Rohe, who allowed just three hits to the Warriors over five scoreless innings while striking out seven batters. After driving in two runs with his opening-inning triple, Andrews doubled and scored Kirkwood's fourth run of the game in the fourth inning on a two-out RBI single by Blake Lundholm before delivering the game's decisive blow with a three-run home run to right in the fifth that put the Eagles up 8-0.

It was during the very next inning that Torrez implored his Warriors to continue fighting after Cale Clark failed to make a run to first base after taking a breaking ball for a called third strike. Zachari Pace followed by delivering a clutch two-out RBI single up the middle that brought in Ramos from third base to give Indian Hills its first run of the game.

"You've got fight not just for the game, but you've got to fight for tomorrow," Torrez said. "You can't roll over. You've got to fight to give yourself some good energy and a good vibe for the next day."

Nagel would help put the next three runs on the board for Indian Hills, reaching on an error in the seventh before scoring on a wild pitch as the Warriors cut Kirkwood's lead to 8-2. Nagel added his third hit of the day in the ninth, driving in Ethan Acevedo with an RBI single before scoring later in the inning on another wild pitch, continuing his own run of success reaching safely in eight of IHCC's past nine games while batting .432 with five doubles, 10 RBIs and 10 runs scored.

"You never know what can happen if you keep hitting," Nagel said. "It was just a game where (Kirkwood) got the bigger hits in bigger situations."

Indian Hills (9-14, 3-3 ICCAC) returns home to face Iowa Central in a three-game regional series at Pat Daugherty Field. The final two games of the series will be played in a doubleheader on Saturday starting at noon.