Prep baseball: Ottumwa splits home opener

OTTUMWA — For the first time this season, John Jaeger gave the postgame address to the Ottumwa baseball team on their home diamond at John Hart Stadium on Wednesday night.

The Bulldogs had just split a varsity doubleheader with Ames, winning 3-2 in game one before falling 6-0 in the second game to the Little Cyclones. With a trip to Wellman to face Mid-Prairie looming just 24 hours later, Jaeger looked to motivate his team with a simple three-word statement.

"We're right there!"

Ottumwa finished off the second week of the 2024 baseball season on Thursday with an 8-5 win over Mid-Prairie in one of the first meetings between the programs. The Bulldogs jumped out to a 6-0 lead against the Golden Hawks, a team that routinely competes for Class 2A substate titles and state tournament berths, before Cameron Manary clinched his first win on the mound for Ottumwa retiring Tatem Telfer and Bowen Burmeister on fly outs to end the sixth after Mid-Prairie had loaded the bases, bringing the tying run to the plate in a bid to avoid suffering its first loss of the season.

"That's where it starts first for us is guys getting good experience on the mound and throwing strikes for us," Jaeger said. "You've just got to grind. It's a battle out there each day. Whether it's in the sport or in life, you just have to come back every day and learn from your mistakes to hopefully better yourself each and every day."

Ottumwa has experienced plenty of grind so far through the first six games, resulting in an even 3-3 record so far with each of the first four games decided in the sixth inning or later. The Bulldogs had to grind for a win in their very first home game of the year on Wednesday, rallying from a 2-0 deficit as Ottumwa maximized their scoring chances, bringing in Brayden Larkin on a wild pitch in the bottom of the second inning to cut the lead of Ames in half before finally tying the game in the fifth on a sacrifice fly to center by Daltin Doud, scoring Andrew Evans after senior infielder led off the inning with a single.

"We talked a lot last week about being able to close games," Jaeger said. "We got behind early and we just kept chipping away. We continued to keep battling. We had good plate appearances. Guys didn't give up and that's what it comes down to in a close ballgame."

Dawson Weller finished off Ottumwa's home-opening win on Wednesday both at the plate and on the mound. At the plate, Weller drove in Tyler Schaus with a one-out RBI single to put the Bulldogs ahead 3-2.

"I was really nervous, but I knew I just had to put a ball in play to give us a chance to drive in that run," Weller said. "I got a ball I could take a swing at and delivered a hard hit."

Weller was then called on to close out a one-run win in the seventh, taking over for Tucker Long who had retired 12 of his last 13 batters including 10 strikeouts in the previous four innings. For Weller, it was a chance at redemption after giving up the lead in the seventh in his last relief appearance, a 6-4 loss in the second game of a season-opening doubleheader at West Des Moines Valley last Tuesday.

"I know going into the season I'll be put into that situation many more times this season," Weller said. "I just know that my coaches believe in me. I just need to throw strikes and trust my pitches."

Weller secured his first save of the season, retiring Ames in order in the seventh. The Ottumwa freshmen even took care of the final out himself, snagging a ground ball off the bat of Jameson Webber before firing to first to clinch the opener against the Little Cyclones.

"It felt a lot better than it did after the Valley game," Weller said. "It's great to get that first save of the season. Hopefully, it's the first of many."

The perfect seventh inning clinched the first win of the year on the mound for Long, who had to settle for a tough no-decision last Thursday at Indianola despite retiring the first 15 batters of the eventual 2-1, eight-inning loss to the Indians. Long finished Wednesday's game with 14 strikeouts, bringing his season total to 29 over the course of 13 innings while allowing just seven total hits and posting an early-season 1.62 ERA.

"I'm really happy with how my pitches are looking and I'm really understanding what's working and what isn't working for me," Long said. "I throw my slider in 3-2 counts a lot. I'm feeling really confident with it. I feel like I can get it in the strike zone a lot. That's a pitch I've gained a lot more confidence in throwing."

Wednesday's doubleheader was defined by dominant starting pitching. Long's 14-strikeout performance was matched by Carter Geffre, who pitched a complete-game shutout for the Little Cyclones (2-6) in game two allowing no hits over seven innings after giving up a single to Daltin Doud to open the game.

"Geffre might be one of the best pitchers in the entire state," Jaeger said. "We definitely have some things to work on, but we kept battling. We could have put our tails between our legs and just given up. You learn from those situations dealing with really good pitchers and learn how to navigate those at-bats. Every day, we come out here and learn something new."

On Thursday, Ottumwa faced a somewhat familiar face on the mound in Telfer, who is in his first year at Mid-Prairie (4-1) after playing the past two seasons at Cardinal. Telfer was also a teammate of several Bulldog baseball players on Ottumwa's 13-year-old Babe Ruth baseball team that advanced to the semifinals of the Babe Ruth World Series in the summer of 2021.

Telfer struggled with his command, loading the bases in the second inning before allowing former Babe Ruth teammates Andrew Evans and Matt Mitchell to score on wild pitches giving Ottumwa a 2-0 lead. The Bulldogs broke the game open in the fourth on a two-run single by Larkin and a fielding error by the Golden Hawks, one of four defensive miscues in the game, to bring in Larkin and Long giving OHS a six-run lead.

"I like what I'm seeing from these guys. They've got the grit," Jaeger said. "Championship ballclubs aren't going to go away easily. That's the fun part about baseball. It's never over until that last out. We just have to keep approaching it that way."

Ottumwa is off next week before returning to the diamond on June 3 to host Des Moines Roosevelt in a key battle of two Iowa Alliance south division championship hopefuls at Legion Memorial Field. The doubleheader with the Roughriders is scheduled to be the first two games of a busy week with Ottumwa playing eight games in six days culminating with a trip to Busch Stadium in St. Louis to play Oskaloosa following the Cardinals' game with Colorado on Saturday, June 8.