Go-Hawks return to salvage DH split against Comets

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — When it rains, it pours.

Last Friday night, a steady shower persisted for nearly two hours before they finally postponed the second game of the Charles City Comets’ doubleheader against Waverly-Shell Rock with the Go-Hawks ahead 1-0 after two innings.

The weather was ideal when the game resumed Monday at Sportsmen’s Park. But a perfect storm of timely hitting by the Go-Hawks and several physical and mental errors by the Comets resulted in a four-run rally in the top half of the sixth.

That put Charles City in a 7-0 hole before losing 8-0 as they split a doubleheader that took four days to complete.

Go-Hawks starter Dalton Graven earned the shutout victory after striking out nine and yielding two walks and four hits in seven innings.

In Friday’s game, Theo Arndt capped a game-winning three-run rally with walk-off single for the Comets’ 5-4 victory.

While trying to achieve even greater seventh-inning heriocs in Game Two, Arndt led off with a double to left-center — the hardest hit ball against Graven aside from Drew Mitchell’s solid single to break up Graven’s no-hitter in the fifth inning.

But Graven retired the next three Comets in order — two by strikeout — as the Go-Hawks were not going to be stunned again.

Charles City starter Nate Lasher suffered the loss. He managed to pitch out of several jams and struck out seven in five and one-third innings. But on several occasions, the Comets gave the Go-Hawks four and five outs an inning as only four of the seven runs scored off Lasher were earned.

Josh Buresh, Cammy Moore and Cole Havlovic each had two hits for the Go-Hawks. Buresh, Moore and Graven also doubled.

Charles City (4-4, 1-2 in Northeast Iowa Conference), will try to rebound today with a doubleheader at Waukon.

WAVERLY-SHELL ROCK 8,

CHARLES CITY 0

Scoring By Innings

WSR 011 014 1 — 8 12 1

CC 000 000 0 — 0 4 5

WP — Dalton Graven (WSR) 7 IN, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 9 SO.

LP — Nate Lasher (CC) 5.33 IN, 11 H, 7 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 7 SO

Leading Hitters — WSR: Josh Buresh (2-4, 2B, 2 runs scored, RBI), Cammy Moore (2-4, 2B, RBI, run scored), Cole Havlovic (2-4, RBI); Charles City: Theo Arndt (1-3, 2B), Nate Lasher (1-2), Drew Mitchell (1-3), Tyler Brockney (1-3, SB).