Council Bluffs, IA— One hit was all the Iowa Western Community College Reivers needed in game two of Saturday's Iowa Community College Athletic Conference (ICCAC) doubleheader to complete a four-game sweep over the Marshalltown Community College baseball team. The Tigers dropped game one 7-0 before falling 3-2 in the nightcap.
Kolton Gonnerman (Centerville, IA/Centerville), making his second start of the season, retired the first nine batters to open up game two, including striking out the side in the third inning. The first and only hit of the game for the Reivers came as a three-run triple in the fourth inning as MCC left eight batters on base over the final three frames to drop their 11th straight to the Reivers, ranked No. 6 in the latest NJCAA Division I polls.
Game one saw the Reivers (27-5, 10-2) score first with a run in the second inning and added four more in the third inning to pull away before adding two runs in the sixth inning. Austin Gridley (Fairfield, IA/Fairfield) suffered the loss after allowing five earned runs on seven hits in 5.2 innings of work.
For the third straight game in the series, the offensive production came from the top of the order as Anderson Villarroel (U.E. Santisima Caridad) and Logan Holtz (Urbana, IA/Center Point-Urbana) collected three of the team's four hits, including two from Holtz, in the loss.
Gonnerman mowed down the Reiver hitters to start game two, striking out five batters through the first three innings. The Tigers managed just one hit of their own until Alexis Melendez (Trujillo Alto, PR/IBAHS) delivered a solo home run to left field in the fourth inning for the 1-0 lead.
Iowa Western managed to load the bases off of Gonnerman to start the bottom of the fourth by way of a hit by pitch and back-to-back walks. With two outs, the Reivers delivered their lone knock of the game, a bases-clearing triple to right field.
MCC was able to get one run back in the fifth as Villarroel singled through the second base hole to bring in Bryan Ventura (Carolina, PR/Next Level America). MCC left two runners on to end the sixth and were unable to tie the game in the seventh with a runner on base.
Villarroel and Holtz recorded 11 of the team's 14 hits in the four-game series over the weekend. Thomas Sanchez (Onalaska, WI/Holmen) made an appearance on the mound in each game Saturday, pitching a total of 1.2 innings without allowing a base runner. In nine appearances this season, Sanchez has allowed just one earned run with an earned run average of 0.77.
The Tigers return home for a single nine-inning game against Iowa Central Community College at 2:00 PM on April 14.
