GILMAN — East Marshall’s Jacob Farrington delivered the game-winning hit in a 4-3 victory for the Mustangs, earning a split with the visitors from Grundy Center in an NICL West doubleheader at East Marshall Middle School on Monday.

East Marshall improved to 3-12 overall and 3-5 in the NICL West. The Spartans won game one, 13-4, and moved to 6-1 in West play.

Trailing 3-1 in the seventh inning, the Mustangs loaded the bases on a Xavier Slifer walk, Tyler Fuller reaching on an error and Connor Hassin being hit by a pitch to bring Farrington to the plate with two outs.

The Spartans brought in Brayden Davie to try and close out the game.

“I saw him earlier in the game and had gone up to bat against him,” Farrington said. “I knew my team believed in me, so I just went up there, relaxed and tried to get a hit.”

Farrington lifted a hit to shallow center to bring home two runs. An infield error on the Spartans trying to tag out the go-ahead run turned Farrington’s base knock from the game-tying hit to the game-winner – unbeknownst to Farrington.

“I had no idea,” Farrington admitted. “I was really just locked in and paying attention to running the bases.”

Coach Justin Frost added, “We ran the bases really well in that instance to have someone scoring from first base on that by forcing a wide throw at third.”

The win snapped a four-game skid for the Mustangs, including narrow losses to Denver and Gladbrook-Reinbeck last week.

“I think this gives us some momentum,” Farrington said. “We’ve been playing pretty good this past week, pitching really good, hitting good, building confidence, and I think this will help us get going and win some more games this week.”

Connor Kriegel battled for the Mustangs in Game 2 on the mound, Frost said.

“He kept them off-balance and mentioned he couldn’t really find a secondary pitch, so he was just going with his fastball,” Frost noted. “And our defense made plays when we had to to keep us in it long enough and take advantage of that seventh inning. The kids didn’t quit.”

It was a major turnaround from Game 1, where East Marshall led 4-0 after two innings before Grundy’s bats came alive, smashing out 15 hits for the game and scoring six runs in the third and four runs in the seventh to really put it out of reach.

“We can’t stop scoring after two,” Frost said. “I don’t know if 13 to 4 was indicative of what the actual score was right there. If we cleaned some things up I thought we could take that second game.”

Judd Jirovsky was 4-for-5 at the plate for Grundy in the first game and Ryker Thoren, Tate Jirovsky and Brody Zinkula all had three hits each. Zinkula and Judd Jirovksy had three RBI and Thoren, Pete Lebo and Patrick Brown III all knocked in two runs each.

Grundy Center coach Pat Brown Jr. warned his team that they couldn’t take the Mustangs lightly, however.

“These guys, they love baseball. If you think you’re gonna get one for free, you’re crazy,” Brown Jr. said. “We can’t be complacent, we have to put in the time in the cage, and everywhere else.

“We’ve got to better prepare ourselves to play these doubleheaders. Getting the guys wound up to play these games back-to-back is tough. Physically, we’re there. But we just lacked that mental toughness. And then you come out and press at the end of the game, throw the ball around a little bit, and East Marshall comes out and they won.”

Brown Jr. also mentioned that they want to be mindful of their pitching depth to make sure they can win big games, leaving the margin of error for pitching small.

Tate Jirovsky struck out four in three shutout innings for Grundy Center in Game 2; younger brother Judd struck out six with five walks.

“We have to be ready to go for Oelwein coming to our house,” Brown Jr. said. “Every day in baseball is a new day, but you have to be ready to play and ready for the grind.”

East Marshall is back home on Tuesday against GMG for a single game.

“We should be more confident going into the next game,” Farrington said. “Believe in each other and I think we’ll win some more games this week.”