Reivers Bounce Back to Win District Title
Mt. Carmel, Ill. - Iowa Western Baseball bounced back after an opening round loss to win the Midwest District Tournament, 7-5 in 10 innings over Wabash Valley.
The Reivers (54-8) fell in their opening game of the double-elimination tournament on Wednesday, 11-1 to the Warriors (42-22), but were able to come out on top of McHenry County (43-13), 6-2 the following day.
IWCC advanced to take on John A. Logan (46-12) on Thursday evening and took care of the Volunteers, 10-6 to set up another meeting with Wabash Valley in the finals with the Reivers needing to win two in a row.
Iowa Western easily handled the Warriors in game one, winning 16-5 but found themselves down early in game two 4-0 but Nate Voss drove in a pair on a 2-run single to cut the lead in half. The Warriors then balked in another run with the bases loaded to make it a 4-3 game.
Wabash increased their lead to two on a safety squeeze to make it 5-3 in the bottom of the 6th. Down by a pair in the top of the 8th, Reese Harmon doubled down the left field line, then Voss stepped in and launched a two-run homerun over the left field wall to tie the game a 5 runs a piece.
Neither team could scratch across another run in the 9th so the game moved to extra innings. Harmon again doubled to lead things off, this time to right center field. Voss then recorded another RBI, doubling Harmon home. Kyle Hvidsten hit a sacrifice fly to right field to add another run to make it 7-5 going into the bottom of the 10th.
Wabash Valley would go down 1-2-3 and Iowa Western celebrated the programs 20th District Championship.
The Reivers will now head to Grand Junction, Colorado for the first time since the team finished as the national runner-up in 2019. For second-year Head Coach Ryan Cougill, he'll be making his 3rd trip to the JUCO World Series and first as a Reiver.
Coach Cougill led the Roughriders of Yavapai College to "JUCO" in 2015 and 2016 with his team reaching the pinnacle of Junior College baseball during his second trip, defeating San Jacinto 5-2 to win the title.
Iowa Western will be headed to GJ for the 20th time since 1977 and own a 36-34 record at the JUCO World Series, winning national championships in 2010, 2012, and 2014.