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Rebels get right

Gladbrook-Reinbeck baseball team beats South Hardin, 10-1, in NICL West

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - Gladbrook-Reinbeck senior Caden Kickbush, left, celebrates with junior Jackson Kiburis after both scored in the third inning of the Rebels' 10-1 victory over South Hardin in Eldora on Thursday. The win snapped the first three-game losing streak of the year for Gladbrook-Reinbeck.

ELDORA — The Gladbrook-Reinbeck baseball team only managed 17 total hits in its last three games, leading to its first three-game losing streak of the season.

Those hitting problems were alleviated in the third inning of Thursday’s NICL West meeting with South Hardin, however, as the Rebels exploded for eight runs on five hits to turn a 1-1 tie into an eventual 10-1 blowout of the Tigers.

Gladbrook-Reinbeck head coach Scott Kiburis said it was good to see his guys get the bats going, especially against a quality arm on the mound.

“Cade Spieker is a great pitcher, he’s pitched two no-hitters this year, so to get that big inning on him was good,” Kiburis said. “I know they mishandled a few balls but we worked the count and got some walks and some key hits throughout the lineup. That’s what we’ve been needing, we’ve had some kids going in one part of the lineup but not the other and not putting it all together like we were earlier in the season.”

Walker Thede got the scoring going in the third for the Rebels (15-8, 5-5) with a bases-loaded single that plated Jackson Kiburis and Caden Kickbush, then Bryce Schick added another single and RBI before Kickbush came back up to the plate and hit his second double of the inning that brought home Schick and Kiburis.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - Gladbrook-Reinbeck junior Jackson Kiburis makes contact with the ball for a single in the fifth inning of the Rebels' 10-1 win over South Hardin on Thursday in Eldora.

Thede said that inning was a much-needed confidence booster, especially after going scoreless against East Marshall the night before.

“I think that definitely helped, we’ve struggled the last couple games so to have an inning like that and to finish up with a complete game like that, I think that definitely helped us going into these next few games,” he said.

Thede went 2-for-4 at the plate with a single and a double, two RBIs and three runs scored. Mason Skovgard also had a single and a double, along with a walk, a run scored and an RBI.

Much of the scoring came off of some heads-up baserunning on mistakes by South Hardin (2-11, 2-8), which coach Kiburis said his guys need to take advantage of more.

“When we get on base we have a couple of quick kids who can run the bases real well, and I thought they ran the bases very well today,” he said.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - South Hardin courtesy runner Beau Butler, right, prepares to slide into home plate to score during the first inning of the Tigers' 10-1 loss to Gladbrook-Reinbeck on Thursday in Eldora.

Kyle Koppen pitched the complete game to pick up the win, allowing seven hits and one run while striking out six and walking two. G-R got into a couple of tough situations in the last three innings as well, with the Tigers loading the bases in the fifth and seventh inning while getting runners on first and second in the sixth, but they got out of all three frames without surrendering a score.

“Kyle doesn’t walk too many people so it almost allows you to when you do make an error it may not cost you a run,” Kiburis said. “That is very important to us, not giving them free passes. He was in jams and got out of them, he was making sometimes four outs in an inning.”

Koppen moves to 3-2 on the year now — the fourth Rebel pitcher with a winning record — and Thede, the starting catcher, said having an assortment of arms to work with is an ideal situation.

“It makes my job way fun to have a couple guys that throw hard and then they change things up a little bit, but we have other guys who don’t throw nearly as hard but their pitches move so much,” Thede said. “Every pitcher is different and I really enjoy catching for every single one of them.”

Spieker picked up the loss while pitching a complete game for South Hardin, allowing 11 hits and 10 runs in the process. Tigers head coach Dick Shindelar said it wasn’t Spieker that caused the loss, however, it was some untimely mistakes on defense and a lack of production with runners in scoring position on offense.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

“They put the ball in play, if you look a their team batting average over the season it’s pretty impressive. Ours is not, that’s just the way it is,” Shindelar said. “In their big inning, we gave them two walks, a hit with an error, bases loaded no outs, then they get a couple hits. We weren’t sharp, like I told the kids, if we could just count six out of the seven innings we’d be OK, but we gotta play a full game and we didn’t tonight.”

Spieker was the most effective tiger at the plate, going 2-for-4 with the lone run scored in the first inning. Seth Lindaman brought Spieker in with a double to finish 1-for-4, while catcher Colton Haley also went 1-for-4.

The Rebels now turn around and host NICL West co-leader West Marshall for a couple of games today, and if they can sneak a sweep of the afternoon doubleheader they could throw a wrench into the division standings.

“We talked about how if we can get hot in a 24 hour period we have three games in 20 hours after not swinging the bat well in the first three games of the week,” Kiburis said. “When you get into the league you see some good, strong arms, so to beat Cade Spieker today, that’s going in the right direction. Hopefully we can continue that tomorrow.”

The doubleheader between Gladbrook-Reinbeck and the Trojans in Reinbeck will start with game one at 11 a.m. today, while South Hardin will be back in action at home tonight when it hosts East Marshall.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

Gladbrook-Reinbeck 10, South Hardin 1

At Eldora

G-R 108 100 0 — 10 11 2

SH 100 000 0 — 1 7 1

Kyle Koppen and Walker Thede; Cade Spieker and Colton Haley. WP–Koppen (3-2). LP–Spieker (1-4). 2B–G-R: Caden Kickbush 2, Thede, Mason Skovgard; SH: Seth Lindaman. LOB–G-R 6, SH 10.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

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