Iowa Western rips through Garden City

Council Bluffs, IA (westernkansasnews.com)-For the first time all season, Garden City dropped back-to-back games. That’s not the concerning part; what is: pitching and defense. 

Buster hurlers were tagged for 13 runs on 13 hits, while the defense behind them committed five errors in a 13-3 loss to No. 16 Iowa Western. 

“You can’t give free bases to a high-powered Division-I offense like Iowa Western,” Head Coach Chris Finnegan said afterwards. “And that’s exactly what we did. It wasn’t a good day.”

Although it didn’t start off poorly. It looked like Garden City (17-7, 8-4) was going to get around a lead-off triple by by Alex Krupa when he was tagged out at home. But an error and an RBI single by Jordan Getzelman salvaged the inning for the Reivers. 

Iowa Western (12-3) added a run in the fourth; two in the fifth; four in the sixth and five in the seventh. Ryan Merrill knocked in three of the Reiver runs, going 2-for-3 at the plate. 

Buster starter Brendan Peitsmeyer allowed six earned runs on 10 hits in five innings of work. But the bullpen was even worse, surrendering seven runs behind the combination of Michael Dziurgot and Garrett Bryant, who yielded two runs in just 1/3 of an inning. 

The two teams wrap up their two-game set Wednesday afternoon at 1 p.m.