Cyclone Baseball Rallies Twice for DH Sweep of Atlantic

Harlan Community's Cade Nelson (6-2-25)

Cyclone Baseball Rallies Twice for DH Sweep of Atlantic -

(6-2-25) - The Cyclones needed some late-inning magic against a Hawkeye 10-foe Monday.

Cade Nelson’s 2 RBI single would tie the game and Harlan Community would get a bases-loaded hit by pitch by Brett Heese to walk it off and get a 4-3 win over Atlantic in Game 2 to get a doubleheader sweep. The Cyclones also had to come from behind in Game 1, trailing 5-0 at one point, but stormed back for an 11-8 victory.

Nelson was 3 for 6 with 5 RBI in double dip. He talked with KNOD Sports about his game-tying hit.

“I knew all the batters before, he was only thrown fastballs, trying to get on it early. (The) first one was a little late then I had to adapt and load faster, load earlier, and then I just got that one up the middle.”

Harlan Community Coach Heath Stein was grateful for the victories despite some poor play from his team.

“Besides the two W's, it was not a great night of baseball. Hopefully we learn from it, but we came out flat in Game 1, not ready to go, and dug ourselves a hole and then in game two our approach is and a lot of things we talked about day after day and work on just went absent.”

Cyclones had 6 errors in Game 1 and struck out 12 times in Game 2.

Joseph Gross pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings of relief for the Game 2 win. Gavin Eck had another solid start for the Cyclones, going 5 2/3 and giving up just 2 earned runs while walking 1 and striking out 4.

Game 1 saw a terrific relief effort by Mike Hoffman, going 4 innings and giving up just 2 earned runs. His performance helped the Cyclones with their comeback.

“Mike came in and stopped the bleeding and got us through the middle innings. Then our offense woke up and put some numbers on the board him, but Mike did a great job keeping us in that game.”

After trailing 5-0 in the bottom of the 2nd, Harlan Community put up a 5-spot of their own, with an RBI single by Colton Schneider and RBI double by Heese being the big blows. The Cyclones then took the lead in the 3rd on a Landen Kaufman RBI single, only to have the Trojans tie the game again with an unearned run in the 4th.

Harlan Community then scored 5 unanswered runs, aided by RBI hits by Jozef Reisz and Nelson. Atlantic would score 2 runs in the 6th and have tying runs on base, until Hoffman induced a 6-4-3 double play ended the threat.

Jonas Reynolds would pitch a scoreless 7th for the save.

Harlan Community will look to improve in those areas when they face Kuemper Catholic in Carroll Wednesday at noon.

View past scores by visiting the Iowa High School Athletic Association's website, Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union website,
or Iowa Quik Stats