Karsen Simon (left), Parker Simon (right)
CANDO — From one Simon to another, Cando Post 79 shut down Rugby on Wednesday.
Karsen and Parker Simon combined for 14 strikeouts in a 9-2 win as the team returned home from its tournament in Jamestown. Karsen threw the first three innings, while Parker went the final four. The Bearcats got enough offense late in the game to get the win.
They fell in the non-counter five-inning nightcap, 12-9, but they still took the game that meant more in the standings. It was the Bearcats’ last action before the sectional tournament in Cando during the week of July 22.
“It definitely wasn’t our best game on the sticks there,” P. Simon said. “We had a really good tournament in Jamestown and faced some tough competition. It was a little different coming back here, facing region opponents. But hopefully we can get back into the swing of things and be ready for sectionals.”
Game 1: Cando 9, Rugby 2
The final score doesn’t indicate how tight the contest was for most of its duration. A six-run outburst in the sixth inning fueled the Cando victory, backing up the Simons’ strong pitching performance.
It was scoreless through two innings. Each team loaded the bases with two outs but couldn’t cash in — Rugby in the first and Cando in the second. K. Simon briefly lost some control in the first, issuing two walks. But after escaping the jam, he struck out the side in the second inning.
Simon was overwhelming hitters with fastballs and inducing a plethora of swings and misses. He also displayed a solid curveball that got sharper as his outing went on.
At one point, he recorded six strikeouts in a row. The sixth one, though, reached on a wild pitch in the third inning. The frame spiraled a bit from there with two more walks. Rugby scored on an RBI groundout and a wild pitch, taking a 2-0 lead.
“Karsen threw well,” Cando head coach Jesse Vote said. “Obviously he gets himself wild at times. He’s just gotta get his location down instead of high. And he’s pretty powerful. He throws pretty hard.”
Cando came right back with two runs in the bottom half. The Bearcats loaded the bases with two outs again, drawing a trio of free passes. This time, they cashed in. Catcher Garrett Westlind came up clutch, lining a game-tying two-run double into right-center field.
“It’s what we needed,” Vote said. “We just needed somebody to finally crack one and get a couple runs across.”
Parker took over for his twin brother, Karsen, in the fourth inning. Karsen collected seven strikeouts in his outing, allowing two runs (one earned) while walking four and allowing just one hit.
P. Simon walked the first batter he faced, but then struck out two in a row. Westlind caught the runner stealing to end the inning. Simon walked two more in the fifth inning, but induced a popout to keep the game tied.
Cando came up short in a vital scoring chance in the fourth. The nine-hole hitter, Owen Kurtii, hit a leadoff double. Dane Hagler walked, and they each moved up a base on Brody Svir’s sacrifice bunt. P. Simon walked to load the bases, but K. Simon hit a soft groundout to leave three runners on.
“We had guys on base and we just couldn’t get that timely hit,” Vote said, which was a sentiment that rung true through most of the game.
But the Bearcats broke through in the bottom of the fifth to break the scoreless tie. Hunter Hagler and Westlind both reached on free passes, and Chas Bisbee bunted them over. Kurrtii couldn’t hit a fly ball deep enough to get a run in, but after D. Hagler drew his third walk of the game, Svir was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
It was, perhaps, an anticlimactic way to take the lead. In any case, Cando squeezed ahead 3-2.
And the Bearcats stuck with P. Simon on the mound. Parker brings a similar style of pitching as his brother, though his delivery has a noticeable funk to it with a different type of leg kick that provides some distinction.
He allowed two singles in the sixth inning, including one on a soft ground ball to Karsen, who was playing third base. But Parker struck out three in the inning, stranding the tying run on third.
That run, or lack thereof, became essentially meaningless with the onslaught Cando put up in the bottom of the sixth. K. Simon got thing started with a hustle triple, and Westlind reached on an error to bring in the Bearcats’ first insurance run. A wild pitch and a Kurtii sacrifice bunt brought in the next two, and then D. Hagler and Zach Jorde added run-scoring singles to strike the final nails in the coffin.
It was 9-2, a lead that P. Simon had no thoughts of relinquishing. He shut the door with a 1-2-3 inning, including a strikeout that ended the game.
It gave Parker his seventh strikeout of the game, matching the total his brother put up. Parker walked three, limited Rugby to two hits and didn’t allow any runs.
Game 2: Rugby 12, Cando 9
Cando scored four in the first inning, but surrendered seven in an ugly fourth. The team cycled through inexperienced catchers like Jorde, D. Hagler and K. Simon, which resulted in quite a few wild pitches. Both teams had mostly backups in the starting lineup.
“We kind of stooped down to their level, and we don’t want to do that,” K. Simon said. “By the time sectionals rolls around, we don’t want to be stooping down to other people’s levels. We want to be playing our kind of baseball, and we want to have everything rolling on all cylinders.”
The Bearcats drew three walks in the first. H. Hagler hit a two-run double, and two more scored on Alec Peyerl’s RBI groundout and a wild pitch to make it 4-0.
H. Hagler also got the start on the mound. He struck out five over the first three innings, allowing two runs on errant pickoff throws.
The Bearcats added two in the third to extend their lead to 6-2. They drew five walks in the inning, though they stranded three of them.
Then disaster struck in the fourth. Rugby scored seven runs on just two hits, as Cando committed three errors along with a parade of walks and wild pitches. Hagler’s outing ended after 3 2/3 innings, and Bisbee took over for him. When the frame mercifully came to an end, Rugby led 9-6.
The Bearcats got one back in the bottom half on a Coy Freund RBI single. It was Freund’s second hit in three at-bats — and even the lone out was an 11-pitch at-bat.
Three hits and a wild pitch gave Rugby three more runs in the fifth, making it 12-7.
The Bearcats still didn’t go down quietly. In the final half-inning, Shae Gunderson hit an RBI double, and a wild pitch brought home another. Freund lined out with the potential tying run at the plate, ending the game with a 12-9 score.
That completed Cando’s regular summer season, as Harvey forfeited the squads’ previously scheduled matchup for Thursday. The Bearcats will have all of next week off before hosting the sectional tournament the following week.
“I wish we had some more games between now and the tournament,” Vote said. “Right now, this is it for us, which is good and bad. They’ll get a little bit of a break, but in the same sense, we need to play some games… We’re gonna have to have a few practices and maybe some live hitting, and try to get some reps in.”
