Norse baseball places 2nd at IIAC tourney

The Luther baseball team finished one game short of the national championships last weekend after narrowly losing to Wartburg and earning second place in the IIAC Championships.

The Norse, who were the second seed of the tournament, advanced to the semifinals by defeating third-seeded Coe College 3-2 May 8 at Veterans Memorial Field in Cedar Rapids.

The Norse jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second with a little help from a couple of Kohawk errors. Coe tied the game by scoring a run in both the fourth and sixth innings. Ben Schott (‘10) hit the game winner in the bottom of the seventh, a single to right field that scored Mark Weber (‘10), who started the inning with a walk.

Adam Kohls (‘09) pitched seven strong innings en route to the victory. Kohls allowed two runs on six hits, walked two and struck out four. Nate Todd (‘09) was credited with the save, retiring the final six Coe batters.

In the next round, Luther scored nine runs on 10 hits, posting multiple runs in the first, second and fifth innings and beat Wartburg 9-2. Wartburg, the fourth seed, advanced to the semifinal game by defeating top seed Loras College by a score of 10-9 the day before. The win over the Knights put Luther in the finals, only one victory away from the national championships.

Cody Hyland (‘10) stayed perfect for the season, pitching eight complete innings. Hyland allowed two runs on eight hits, walked three and struck out four. Max Flaig (‘10) pitched the final frame and retired all three of the Knights batters he faced.

Alex Thomas (‘09), who was 2-for-3 batting ninth, hit a two-run home run over the left field fence in the second inning. Chris Reynolds (‘12) also drove in a run with a single to right field.

The Norse blew the game open by scoring four runs on four hits in the fifth. Weber, who was 3-for-4, drove in his second run of the game. Four batters later, Thomas drove in the final two of his four RBIs, with a two-run single up the middle.

On May 10 the Norse faced the Knights again, needing to win only one of two games to claim the conference crown and clinch a trip to the national championships. Earlier in the afternoon, Wartburg had defeated Coe 15-2 in seven innings, allowing the Knights the opportunity to play the Norse for the conference tournament title, and their momentum was too much for Luther to handle.

The Knights scored 20 runs on 27 hits against Luther, defeating the Norse 8-4 in game one and 12-7 in game two. In game one, Wartburg was trailing 2-1 entering the top half of the seventh when it exploded for six runs on six hits off Todd. The loss was Todd’s fourth of the year in ten decisions. Luther produced eight hits off Knights starter and last year’s conference MVP Jerrold Martijn (10-1). Nate Neis (‘09), Steve Beckman (‘11) and Joe Thompson (‘11) each had two hits.

Luther went through five pitchers in the championship game in an attempt to stop the Knights’ hot bats, who produced 16 hits. The seventh inning proved to be the difference as the Knights scored seven runs on seven hits.

Neis and Schott tallied four of Luther’s eight hits. Neis was 2-for-5 with two RBIs while Schott was 2-for-4 and also drove in two runs.

Luther, the IIAC co-champions, finished the regular season with a record of 29-13.