Bears Hammer Beavers In Regular Season Finale

 By Gregory Norfleet, West Branch Times
 WEST BRANCH — Getting up by two runs in the first inning? A good start. Scoring 11 runs in the second? An awesome follow-up.Smashing a three-run homer for a 15-plus-run win in the fourth? A sweet, sweet finish.
 West Branch’s baseball team wrapped up conference play July 8 by overwhelming the visiting Wilton Beavers’ pitching staff and defense with a 17-0 victory in the bottom of the fifth inning after junior Cael Fiderlein knocked in the game-ending runs over the left-field fence.
 Senior Trey Eagle pitched all four innings, allowing only two hits and striking out 11 — a good number of Ks for even a full, seven-inning game. West Branch fell to then top-ranked Wilton in 2019 in two close games.
 Wilton Head Coach Jake Souhrada said pitching made the difference.
 “We were very short on pitching today,” he said. With a busy schedule that week and a makeup game with Anamosa the day before, he had to rest some of his best pitchers. “We came into the game short-handed pitching-wise,” he said. “Our pitchers threw strikes but West Branch hit the ball but we didn’t make plays behind them. … It kind of snowballed on us.”
 Part of the satisfaction includes overcoming a team under the leadership of Souhrada, one of the longest-serving and successful baseball coaches in Cedar County Souhrada said after the game that Wilton needs to practice hard before the playoffs.
 “Obviously we need to work on just about everything at this point,” he said. “But we’ll keep battling and get better. We’ve had some big wins over the course of the year but today was just not one of those days.”

Wilton Splits Early Week Games At Home
 WILTON — The Wilton baseball team split two home games last week. The Beavers beat Cascade
2-1 and fell 14-4 at home to Anamosa.
 On Monday, July 6, Wilton beat the Cascade Cougars 2-1. The Beavers scored the game’s first runs with single runs in the first and second inning to take a 2-0 lead. That lead held the rest of the game. The Cougars scored their only run in the top of the seventh to make things interesting, only to see Wilton come up with a 2-1 win.
 Karson Willey was the winning pitcher after starting and going 4 ⅔ innings. Willey struck out five and walked one and gave up only three hits. Nolan Townsend pitched the final 2 ⅓ innings to earn the save. Townsend gave up one run on six hits and struck out five.
 Against Anamosa, Wilton had a tough night in a 14-4 loss in five innings. The Raiders put up 11 runs in the top of the fifth to secure a 10-run margin to end the game in the fifth inning, at 14-4. Wilton trailed 3-0 going to the bottom of the third. There, Wilton put up four runs to take their first lead of the game, 4-3 after three innings.
 Jackson Hull took the loss after working 4 ⅔ innings. He gave up 11 runs on ten hits and walked four. Chase Garvin also pitched in the game. Wilton had only three hits in the game with hits from three different players. Getting hits for Wilton were Gage Hagen, Caleb Sawvell, and Jackson Hull. Hagan, Hull, and Patrick Barszczewski each had RBI’s.