Falls City’s Blue Storm Seniors split a pair of games last week and enter this week’s Southeast Nebraska Baseball Conference tournament as the four seed.
FC, now 10-5 and 4-3 in the conference, square off against No. 5 seed Auburn (8-3, 3-3) tomorrow at 8 p.m. Two-seed Nebraska City (6-5, 5-2) and No. 7 Tecumseh (2-6, 1-5) round out the Southern Division and play at 6 p.m. SNC Field is the site of the Southern Division first and second round games, as well as all four final round games Saturday.
Lane Scheitel (2-2, 3.00 ERA) will take the mound for FC tomorrow, followed by southpaw Reese Hogue (3-1, 5.78) in the second round. Derek Bippes is slated in the third spot and Wade Witt could throw Saturday if needed.
The North’s first two rounds are in Syracuse with top-seed Plattsmouth (6-3, 6-1) facing winless Syracuse at 6 p.m. Third-seeded Wilmar Electric (4-3, 4-3) and No. 6 seed EMN Nationals follow at 8.
Wednesday’s losers play at 6 p.m. Thursday, followed by the semifinals at 8. Saturday’s finals begin with the seventh place game at 11 a.m., followed by fifth place at 1:30 p.m., third place at 4 and finally the championship at 6:30.
Auburn mustered only four hits, but left town with a 4-3 victory in the teams’ only meeting this summer.
Bippes struggled with his command in the loss to Auburn as only 27 of his 57 pitches thrown were strikes.
Since then however, Bippes has been stellar. He pitched all eight innings in a 5-4 win over Wilmar, allowing one earned run and three hits while striking out seven.
Bippes improved to 3-1 last Tuesday in an 11-0 rout of Hiawatha, KS. He fanned eight, walked one and allowed just one hit in five innings to drop his team-leading earned-run-average to 2.23.
Lane Scheitel finished 3-3 at the plate against Hiawatha with three RBIs. Chase Thompson had a pair of RBIs, while Bippes, Hogue, Chaz Dunn and Jordy Stoller each drove in one.
FC was held to only three hits in a 14-0 loss at Beatrice last Wednesday.
Dunn, Thompson and Tyler DiGiacomo each singled for FC.
DiGiacomo and Dunn extended their hitting streaks to 11 and seven games, respectively.
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