Marshalltown baseball was a base hit away from a sweep against Des Moines North on Tuesday night.

The Bobcats chipped away at an early deficit but left the deciding two baserunners on as the Polar Bears escaped with a 10-9 win in Game 2 for the split at Marshalltown High School.

Marshalltown claimed victory in the opener, 6-3, and moved to 6-26 overall with one Iowa Alliance Conference doubleheader left to play in the home finale twinbill against Waterloo East.

The Bobcats trailed 10-4 after 2 1/2 innings when the Polar Bears scored four runs in the second and six in the third.

“We have to have some discipline in getting those big innings stopped,” said Marshalltown interim head coach Allen Mann. “If we cut either of those big innings in half, the outcome is different at the end. You can’t dig yourself in too big of a hole.”

The hosts didn’t fold, though. In the fifth inning, Jacob Hayes singled home Keiler Blue and back to back RBI groundouts from Nick Wise and Zander Stupp scored Hayes and Tayven Dutton.

Marshalltown left a runner on third in the sixth inning, but in the seventh Hayes and Dutton reached again and came home on a one-out single by Stupp. The Bobcats had runners at second and third with two outs after a Seth Smith hit by pitch but North was able to reel in a shallow fly ball to end the threat and seal the win.

“It says a lot about the kids’ character to compete when things are going wrong,” Mann said. “We’ve had those moments this year and each time the kids have always made a decision to not hang their heads, to continue to compete. That’s all I can ask for as a coach.”

The team seemed to settle in when Stupp came on in relief, throwing four and one-third innings with no earned runs on two hits and one walk with four strikeouts.

“He threw strikes right away and that’s exactly what we needed at that moment,” Mann said. “We kept their guys off-balance a bit and got them popping stuff up so our guys can make plays.”

Hayes and Dutton each finished 2-for-3 at the plate. Stupp had three RBI and Hayes and JJ Schoenfelder had two RBI each. Nick Wise and Keiler Blue each had single RBI in the nightcap.

The North victory ended an 88-game losing streak – a 103-game skid if not counting a July 17, 2020 forfeit victory over Council Bluffs Jefferson.

The Polar Bears tried to mount their own rally in Game 1 against the Bobcats, trailing 6-0 but getting three runs across on a Bobcat error and a two-out, two-RBI double from Teagen O’Brien.

However, O’Brien was caught off the bag with a Marshalltown pickoff move to end the game.

Combined with Caleb Kusserow’s two RBIs on sacrifice bunts that got Marshalltown out to an early lead and the first game was a good showing for the Bobcats’ commitment to the little things.

“There’s things we do defensively and offensively that we need to execute when it matters in key moments,” Mann said. “We practice it, we continue to work at it, and when the kid’s number is called, they go and execute it. We’ll probably need that a couple more times here as the season goes on.”

Dutton and Stupp each added an RBI in the opening game as well.

Tuesday was the Bobcats’ Senior Night, recognizing Seth Smith, Nick Rebik and Keiler Blue. Rebik, the team’s leading hitter at .394 this season, was on crutches for Tuesday’s games, with Mann noting that they’ll learn more about Rebik’s readiness for the rest of the season later in the week.

“I give those three a lot of credit for being willing to be coachable,” Mann said. “They’re the best example that you could have in a teammate and all three are great leaders and have exceeded my expectations this season. And it’s hard, because I’m their third head coach in a short timeframe and that’s not fair to them.

“My hope is this year is the year to bring some stability and work ethic and willingness to come and work every single day. That’s the keystone that we need to get this whole program going back in the direction that we want to go.