The Bobcats surrendered too many free bases to a hard-hitting Ottumwa team as the Bulldogs swept up Marshalltown on Wednesday.

Ottumwa won 19-0 in five innings in Game 1, then won 25-2 in four innings in Game 2. MHS is back in action on the home field against Mason City tonight.

“You have to hit the reset button because you’ve got two more tomorrow night,” MHS head coach Colton Hanke said. “We play a lot of games — there’s a lot of opportunities and you just have to look forward to wanting to go back out there again.”

The Bulldogs smacked 29 hits across both games of the doubleheader, with 16 of them going for extra bases. Combined with 23 walks issued by Bobcat pitching and nine Marshalltown errors, the games quickly spiraled out of hand on Wednesday.

Ottumwa led 5-0 after three innings of Game 1 and then scored six runs in each of the fourth and fifth innings; in the nightcap, the Bulldogs put up 18 runs in the first inning alone.

“They hit it, but we gave them a lot more bases than we could afford,” Hanke said.

Tayven Dutton was 2-for-2 at the plate in the opener for the Bobcats. Sam Greazel and Dale Greene each knocked in a run in the second game.

Greazel also made two double plays in the second game, which Hanke said was crucial to see Greazel and the other upperclassmen, including seniors Caleb Kusserow behind the plate and Greene out in centerfield, continuing to make plays even when the game was well out of hand.

“It’s good to have those types of guys that just continue to stick with it,” Hanke said. “They’re taking our younger guys under their wing and encouraging them to just continue to want the ball.”

Marshalltown sent out six pitchers on Wednesday, all of them underclassmen — eighth graders Bennett Ricken and Ashton Wright and freshmen Luke Stalzer, Gavin Freiberg, Treyton Gilliland and JJ Schoenfelder all got a little extra varsity experience.

“You have to grow from that,” Hanke said. “You have to continue to progress, have to think long-term, those guys have three, four years left after this, you just get that under your belts. It’s next guy up at this point.”

Mason City swept Marshalltown, 2-1 and 12-2, on May 23.

“We’ve got a couple guys ready for tomorrow night that threw on Monday,” Hanke said. “We’ll get those guys out there and take it from there.”