Hello, Old Friend: Baseball Tangos with Boone for Trip to State (Again)

By: Nathan Bloechl — [email protected]

Webster City, Iowa — It’s almost unthinkable, is it not?

Three weeks ago, as Jason Thurm said at the baseball banquet Sunday night, “we’re just trying to see how we can get back to .500.”

Fast forward to today, and the Humboldt Wildcat baseball team is playing for a chance to go to the state tournament for the second time in three seasons.

They earned that opportunity by knocking off not only Clear Lake last Friday, but Webster City last night, 5-3 in Webster City.

Owen Newton got the scoring started when he lifted his second home run of the season, a three-run shot in the 3rd off Dylan Steen to give Humboldt an early 3-0 advantage.

The Lynx would come back in the home half of the inning to tie things, with RBI’s by Steen, Noah McKinney and Jordan Tanner.

Luckily, it was Humboldt’s defense that got them out of the inning when starting pitcher Cade Witzke induced a line-drive double play.

Witzke was terrific in the outing overall, allowing seven hits and three runs, while striking out two.

Humboldt would answer in the fourth, taking the lead back for good courtesy of bloop RBI singles by Isaac Thurm and Joey Busse.

It was Humboldt’s third straight win over the Lynx this season.

In total, the Wildcats have won nine of their last ten games, and come in as one of the hottest teams in the state despite having a 19-14 record.

Standing in their way of a state berth is the Toreadors of Boone High School.

With the way Humboldt’s been playing I’d venture a guess and say Boone doesn’t want to see Humboldt, but then again — I’m not so sure Humboldt wants to see Boone either.

The game Wednesday night is just the latest installment of Boone vs. Humboldt in a meaningful game as the two sides of had their fair share of history with each other.

It was Boone who knocked out Humboldt three years ago in sub-state, 4-2.

This time, it’s the Wildcats looking to play spoiler.

Wednesday evening’s game will begin at 7:00 p.m., with pre-game coverage beginning at 6:45 p.m.