Ryder Slifer wasn’t introducing a new dance move or breaking in a new celebration. He just slipped and fell.

It was one of very few stumbles for the Grundy Center baseball team on Friday night.

The Spartans smacked 16 hits and scored in five of six at-bats to beat Marshalltown 17-1 in six innings on Friday at the MHS diamond, highlighted by Slifer’s two-run home run in the top of the third.

Slifer got back-to-back curveballs from Marshalltown senior pitcher Zander Stupp with one on and two out and launched the latter well over the left-field fence. After sauntering around the bases, the 6-foot-5 junior first baseman fell backward after touching home plate only to catch himself and join his teammates in celebration.

“That thing’s slippery,” he said. “Kind of karma, though. I took a little long going around the bases — that’s what coach said anyway.”

Slifer’s second career home run gave his team a 5-1 lead, providing mere insurance for the Spartans (4-0), who capped an unbeaten opening week by handing the host Bobcats (3-2) their second-straight loss.

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you the last time we started a season 4-0,” said Grundy Center head coach Pat Brown II. “Granted, the first four games don’t mean anything against those last four — that’s going to be where we want to be with it — but it’s been a long week. These kids have been grinding with track, tennis, golf … all that stuff.”

The Spartans gave junior left-hander Britt Meyer his first start of the season, and the two-time state bowling qualifier — yep, you guessed it — threw strikes. He threw 38 of 55 pitches for strikes and surrendered just two hits and no walks while striking out three.

“He’s played in big things and he’s done big things, and he goes out there and he’s just calm as a cucumber; you about gotta check his pulse,” Brown said. “He knows what he can do and what he can’t do and he stays within himself. You got tremendous defense behind you. Base on balls: non-existent; hit batters: non-existent; and you come out here and you have a really good, fun outing.”

Grundy Center backed Meyer with plenty of offense, scoring three times in the top of the second to take the lead for good. Pete Lebo and Hayden Geerdes walked, Ethan Meester doubled, Dayton Myers reached on an error, and Brayden Davie plated a run with a sacrifice fly.

Judd Jirovsky followed with a single to put runners on the corners with two outs, but Myers was picked off at third by MHS freshman catcher Garrett Thede to end the inning.

Marshalltown chipped away at the 3-0 deficit in its next at-bat. Sophomore outfielder JJ Schoenfelder hit a one-out single and scored when Ryker Thoren threw wide of Slifer on Tayven Dutton’s grounder.

Eighth-grader Madden Martin followed with a solid line drive, but right into the awaiting glove of Spartan left fielder Hayden Geerdes.

Slifer’s two-run shot gave Grundy Center a 5-1 lead in the third, and the Spartans kept pouring it on from there.

Davie doubled with two outs in the fourth and scored on Jirovsky’s triple, and the Spartans loaded the bases with one out in the fifth to chase Stupp (2-1) from the mound. Fellow senior Sam Greazel allowed all three inherited baserunners to score, including an RBI single by Meester to make it 9-1 Grundy Center.

The wheels fell off Marshalltown’s wagon in the sixth, when the Spartans scored eight times on six hits, one walk and four Bobcat errors. Sophomore Treyton Gilliland got two outs on three pitches to end the inning, but the damage had long since been done.

“I think going into that game we were just flat,” said Marshalltown head coach Colton Hanke. “I have stressed mental toughness, and going into next week we have six games. We were pretty flat tonight and we were fairly flat on Tuesday (at Newton).

“It’s got to be a flip of the switch going into next week. It has to, especially with six games coming up.”

Stupp got a one-out single in the fourth to account for the Bobcats’ only other hit against Meyer and Geerdes, who pitched two hitless innings in relief.

Stupp surrendered nine hits and nine runs — eight earned — with three walks and three strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings pitched. Greazel gave up seven hits and eight runs — only two earned — with one walk and three strikeouts in his inning of work. The MHS defense made eight errors in the loss.

“It just wasn’t consistent for what we needed, and then it caught up with just the mental errors that we had and the physical errors that we had,” Hanke said. “It was just kind of one thing after another. It was like we would take one step forward, then we took two steps back.”

Davie, Jirovsky and Meester had three hits apiece for the Spartans, while Slifer and Thoren both had two hits. Jirovsky, who finished as the Class 2A state golf runner-up earlier in the week, was 3-for-5 with two triples and three RBIs, while Slifer was 2-for-3 with a double, a dinger, three RBIs and two runs scored.

“4-0 feels really good,” Slifer said. “We start really early, like February, so we’ve been together, and we’re together in every sport too, so it’s not like this is a new group of guys. We have a lot of chemistry and I would just say putting in the work in the offseason and coming in on Sundays when no one else wants to practice.”

Grundy Center hosts South Hardin for an NICL West Division doubleheader on Tuesday to start a four-game week, while Marshalltown kicks off its six-game week with Monday’s Iowa Alliance Conference doubleheader at Ames. The Bobcats host Fort Dodge and Des Moines Roosevelt for twinbills on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.