Kaufman Steals the Show, Leads Cyclone Baseball to Win Over LC, 3-2

Harlan Community's Landon Kaufman (5-29-24)

Kaufman Steals the Show, Leads Cyclone Baseball to Win Over LC, 3-2 -

(5-29-24) – When the offense isn’t going, you have to improvise.

That’s what Harlan Community did as Landon Kaufman would steal home with 2 outs in the 6th for an important insurance run as they defeated their archrivals Lewis Central 3-2 at J.J. Jensen Park Wednesday.

“It was something big that we needed to do,” Kaufman told KNOD Sports, following the game. “(Coach Heath) Stein gave us a sign to do it. So just try to execute it and it worked out.”

“In that situation. We had Cade (Sears) on 1st and him on 3rd. So, I mean, it's just good opportunity for action there,” Stein said of the play.

It was a much-needed run as the Titans would get a run across in the 7th against Cyclone reliever Quinn Koesters to cut their deficit to one on a 1-out RBI single by Gavin Goldsberry. Koesters would then retire the next two batters to seal his first save of the season.

Koesters earlier got out of a 2-out, bases-loaded jam in the 5th in relief of starter Caleb Schleis to keep it a 1-run game. Schleis gave up just one unearned run in 4 1/3 innings of work to get the win.

“Good pitching, like in tonight's game, it won us the game,” said Kaufman of his teammates. “If we get good pitching and we eliminate errors, we'll win ball games.”

Errors were at the forefront for both teams as each made three on the game, along with some mental errors as well. But Stein was satisfied with getting the victory in such an ugly game.

“I think I told the guys that it was probably the ugliest 3-2 ball games maybe in the history of the game. Just with the amount of free bases that each team gave each other, but I also said once we were in those positions because of the free bases that we gave them, we performed pretty well and made pitches when we had to and plays when we had to get out of jams.”

Kaufman, who had Harlan Community’s only two hits in the game, liked getting the team win against their Hawkeye 10 nemesis.

“It feels great. I mean, our pitching tonight was phenomenal. Everybody played a part. It's just amazing.”

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