Comets almost pull off miraculous comeback against Saints

Down 11-2, Charles City’s rally against St. Ansgar falls a run short in 11-10 loss

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

SAINT ANSGAR — Though it employs pitch counts and — at some levels — instant replay, baseball has yet to institute a time clock.

So when the Charles City Comets found themselves down 11-2 through five innings against the Saint Ansgar Saints in non-conference baseball action Thursday afternoon, infinity was on their side.

“That’s the thing about baseball,” Charles City head coach Tyler Downing said. “You’ve got to battle all the way through 21 outs.”

The Saints almost didn’t have to go that far. If they could have pushed one more run across in the bottom of the fifth for an eight-run rally instead of a seven-run surge, the game would have been stopped due to the slaughter rule.

Still breathing for the sixth inning, the Comets scored twice after Drew Mitchell and Theo Arndt started the frame with back-to-back doubles.

Then in the seventh, Charles City took advantage of several Saint errors and had the tying run on base when Tyler Brockney’s RBI single made the score 11-10.

But the six-run rally that went through the entire Charles City lineup came up short in bringing that 11th run home.

“We fought back in several games this year,” Downing said of a last-inning comeback win over Waverly-Shell Rock earlier in the season, and more recent comebacks against Northeast Iowa Conference champion New Hampton and Oelwein that — like against St. Ansgar — came up short.

“We’re coming up on districts, and there are a lot of one-run games in the postseason,” Downing said. “Sometimes you’re going to be leading, and other times you may be battling from behind. It often comes down to getting that two-out hit.

“We hope that some of these comebacks have prepared us for that.”

Mitchell was 2-for-2 with a RBI. He also reached base twice after being hit by pitches.

Wyatt Stevenson was 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs, and Brady Sickman had a RBI single and scored twice for the Comets (7-17).

Comet starter Jordan Kapping took the loss, though he threw well in both of his pitching appearances.  Kapping was relieved with one out in the fourth after giving up a double to Sam Steele — the Saints were leading 3-2 at the time.

“It was about the third time through the lineup and we wanted to change things up on them,” Downing said of relieving Kapping with Carter Johanningmeier.

During their seven-run fifth, the Saints laid down six bunts that either went for hits or were misplayed by the Comets — or both. One of the few balls hit out of the infield was Colin Kramer’s two-RBI single — he drove the ball through the right side of a drawn-in infield after he was chewed out by his coach for fouling off a suicide-squeeze bunt attempt.

Kapping — as he’s done several times this season — relieved the pitcher who relieved him and pitched a 1-2-3 inning in the sixth. In five overall innings, Kapping gave up seven hits and four earned runs.

Ethan Mayer got the win for the Saints after yielding two hits and two runs in five innings before being relieved by Cole Willert.

Steele, Jacob Hyde and Ben Boerjan each had two hits for the Saints (22-8).

The game was originally a Comets home game to be played at Sportsmen’s Park.

“But we knew with the heavy rain coming, it would likely be here,” Downing said. “At practice yesterday we talked about the likelihood of having to come here and that the game — because they have no lights — would be played earlier.

“Once the decision was made, we had no problem communicating with the players. Technology these days … kids are always connected.”

The Saints were the home team for the relocated game.

“They were able to provide a field for the game, so it was no big deal in letting them be the home team,” Downing said.

The Comets will conclude the regular season tonight with a NEIC doubleheader in Decorah. On July 15, Charles City will face Waverly-Shell Rock in the Class 3A Substate 3 District 5 semifinal at W-SR.

Baseball

SAINT ANSGAR 11,

CHARLES CITY 10

Scoring By Innings

CC 000 202 6 — 10 8 2

SA 201 170 X — 11 11 3

WP — Ethan Mayer (SA) 5 IN, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 SO.

LP — Jordan Kapping (CC) 5 IN, 7 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO.

Leading Hitters — Charles City: Drew Mitchell (2-2, 2B, RBI), Wyatt Stevenson (2-3, 2B, 2 RBIs, run scored), Theo Arndt (1-3, 2B, 2 RBIs, run scored), Brady Sickman (1-3, 2 runs scored, RBI); Saint Ansgar: Jacoby Hyde (2-4, 2 runs scored, RBI), Ben Boerjan (2-4, 2 RBIs), Sam Steele (2-3, 2B, 2 runs scored).