The 2009 Marshalltown High School baseball team recorded strikeouts as a pitching staff like no other Bobcat team before.
Marshalltown's 314 strikeouts in 42 games set a new team record, and leading the way was the left arm of senior Jimmy Six.
Six, the Times-Republican All-Area Player of the Year, finished the season with an 11-4 record and 1.21 ERA. The first team all-stater by Iowa Newspaper Association and Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association struck out 139, walked 25 and allowed 66 hits in 87 innings of work. His strikeout and win total are both fourth in the MHS single-season charts.
"Jimmy ranks among the best that I've seen here," Steve Hanson said at the completion of his 16th year as Marshalltown's head coach.
As Six won each of the Bobcats' three substate games, MHS advanced to its second straight Class 4A state tournament.
"The one thing Jimmy did better than all but one guy (Jeff Clement) is compete," Hanson added. "He was always willing to take the ball and he always competed. You always got the best from Jimmy."
Six also was the ace for the 2008 Bobcats and he left the program ninth in career strikeouts (205), 10th in wins (18) and 10th in ERA (1.70).
"He came a long way, he was a raw-boned kid who threw fairly hard but not with a lot of finesse," Hanson said of Six as a sophomore. "The older he got and the more he pitched, the better he got.
"And I think Jimmy's best days are still ahead of him."
The next time Six pitches it will be as a member of Marshalltown Community College. As a Tiger, Six will be joined by several other of the area's top performers this past summer in Marshalltown's T.J. Flanagan and West Marshall's Joe Disney.
In a long line of great hitters at Marshalltown High School, Flanagan has the program's second best career batting average at .417.
As a senior, the first baseman/catcher hit a team-best .414 to earn IHSBCA Super Team honors. Flanagan also stood second on the team with 39 runs scored, 46 hits, 13 doubles, five home runs and 42 RBIs.
The batting records at West Marshall High School are full of references to Disney.
The first baseman received his third consecutive first team all-state honor in 2009 as he hit .562 with 10 home runs, 51 RBIs and had a slugging percentage of 1.178.
Disney finished with 39 home runs and 225 RBIs in his time wearing a West Marshall uniform - both school records and among the best in Iowa high school history. His .562 in a single-season Trojan mark, as is his 70 RBIs as a junior.
The All-Area team has seven repeat performers from a year ago in Scott Benson of Gladbrook-Reinbeck, Jake Wall of GMG, Nick Hutchens of BCLUW, Nick Thimesch of Marshalltown, Six, Flanagan and Disney.
