The West Marshall baseball team won at least 24 games for the fifth year in a row, racked up a share of the Heart of Iowa Conference, and returned to the substate finals for the fourth time in head coach Jerod Brown’s tenure.

The Trojans are still desperately seeking that next step.

Van Meter senior right-hander Cole Moore allowed only one hit in a complete-game pitching performance, and the third-ranked Bulldogs denied West Marshall its first state tournament berth since 1999 with a 3-0 victory in Tuesday’s Class 2A Substate 7 championship game at Marshalltown High School.

Moore, a University of Iowa commit, walked four and struck out 11 to lead Van Meter (25-8) to state for the first time since six consecutive appearances from 2017-2022. The first one in that run came at West Marshall’s expense, too, and in the shadow of Marshalltown’s Roundhouse as well.

“The parallels are pretty steep,” said Brown at the conclusion of his 14th year. “At this point in the season, everybody you play is good. … You just try to prepare as best you can and, for us, we’ve put ourselves in that situation a lot.”

The hard part for West Marshall (24-10) on this night was getting into scoring situations against Moore, whose fastball sits around 88 miles per hour and rides a bit higher on occasion.

“He’s one of the best pitchers in the state,” Brown said. “You don’t see a guy like that consistently. Maybe if you’re at the 4A level you see it more often, and we do see guys like that throughout the season, but it’s just not on a consistent basis.

“You try to replicate it as much as you can in practice and prepare as much as you can with velocity and things like that, but tonight obviously he was the better man on the mound, so give him a lot of credit for that.”

The Trojans managed to load the bases in the top of the fourth without the benefit of a hit, but that chance slipped through their grasp. AJ Dee was, of course, hit by a pitch to lead off the frame, Caden Pfantz’s grounder to third was misplayed, and West Marshall was threatening.

Moore found his groove and struck out Beckham DeSotel and DJ Ridout consecutively before walking Noah DeSotel to load the bases.

Dawson Bear’s grounder to third was handled this time, and Van Meter got out of a sticky spot.

Already leading 1-0 at the time, the Bulldogs got some added insurance in the wake of their escape. Gabe Jones and Tate Jones both doubled to right-center field to chase Noah DeSotel from the mound with a 3-0 lead for the Bulldogs.

Beckham DeSotel assumed pitching duties and delivered 2 1/3 shutout innings of relief, allowing one hit, but it wasn’t going to be enough until the Trojans scored.

They couldn’t.

Moore retired the side in the fifth, and Pfantz finally broke through for West Marshall with a one-out single in the sixth. The rally was erased, however, when Beckham’s fly ball to deep right field was gloved by Cason Peterson, who threw in time to get Pfantz at first for a double play after the West Marshall senior had slipped trying to retreat to the base.

Unfortunately for the Trojans, that wasn’t the last double play Van Meter would turn. Noah DeSotel reached with a one-out walk in the top of the seventh, but Bear’s ensuing line drive was gloved by first baseman Austin Strong, who stepped on the bag before Noah could return for the final out of the game.

Bear would have been the last batter Moore faced due to pitch-count restrictions, but the Bulldogs made it the distance with their ace intact.

“We just got beat by too many fastballs,” Brown said. “He has a dynamite slider as well, so you can’t just sit on one thing, but he was going to pitch off of the fastball. We needed to punish it more and we just didn’t.”

Gabe Jones went 3-for-3 with a double, and his courtesy runner Braydon Parkison scored a run to help lead Van Meter offensively.

Noah DeSotel took the loss, allowing three runs — two earned — on six hits and three total walks, striking out two in 3 2/3 innings. Beckham DeSotel allowed one hit, walked two and struck out four. The Trojans made two errors.

“You know they’re going to get balls in play, so your defense needs to play well,” Brown said. “Overall, we actually made a lot of plays to get out of innings. We caught a guy stealing, picked off a guy at third, Dawson Bear made a phenomenal play in right — so we made plays, but they started to get to [Noah] a bit and that’s why we got Beckham in there at the end.

“They both did a really good job.”

It was only the second shutout loss of the season for the Trojans, who graduate seven seniors that went a combined 137-41 in their five years with the program.

“The thing we talk about as a group is the idea that there’s two types of pain — there’s pain of discipline and there’s a pain of regrets,” Brown said. “This group, with the work they’ve put in both through the offseason and now, they’re feeling the pain of discipline. It hurts because of the work you’ve put in. They’re all invested.

“The pain of discipline weighs ounces, the pain of regret weighs tons, and this group, I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of pain in regret for the work they put in. It’s disappointing, but I think they’re going to know they invested the time and worked at a certain level to give themselves the best chance for success.”