HUMBOLDT — Staking their claim to their fourth straight Tri-Valley League baseball title, the Humboldt Cubs swept the Cherryvale Chargers, 11-1, 7-1, on Tuesday at home.
“It’s important for us. It’s one of the goals we set out for at the beginning of the year,” Humboldt head coach Mike Miller said of winning the league crown.
“We still have the rest of the goals in front of us. We want to do well at regionals and make it to the state tournament. We’ve checked one of the goals off, but we’ve got bigger things we’re trying to do. It’s still satisfying.”
The Cubs got a pair of dominant outings from Cole Mathes (Game 1) and Brody Gunderman (Game 2) on the hill as they limited the Chargers to six hits.
“They filled up the zone,” Miller said. “They attacked the hitters and played good defense behind them. We had one error in the seventh of Game 2, otherwise it would’ve been a pretty clean night. Our pitching staff was kind of short tonight. One guy was hurt and we used another guy at our tournament. So we told the guys to go out there, throw strikes and let the defense work.”
Cherryvale head coach Scott John cited the Chargers’ lack of execution at the plate to overanxious swings while ahead in the count.
“They threw strikes and we didn’t have a good approach at the plate,” John said. “We got into hitter’s counts and couldn’t be on time. We just couldn’t put together a good approach.”
The Chargers’ pitching staff struggled to limit baserunners, walking eight Cubs and allowing 18 hits over the two games.
“We struggled to find the zone early,” John said. “We thought we were making some pitches and didn’t get the call. We let that affect our play and we didn’t recover. We couldn’t get past that.”
Humboldt claimed an 11-0 lead through two innings of Game 1, setting the tone for the evening.
“I’d have liked to see us stick with it a bit,” Miller said. “We’ve been up and down at the plate this year. We put together some competitive at-bats tonight. It was good to see in those first two innings. But I would’ve liked to see more of it carry over to the rest of the night.”
Mathes had three RBIs on two hits at the plate in Game 1 for the Cubs while Colden Cook notched the same line in Game 2.
Humboldt improved to 16-4 overall with the two wins.
Cherryvale, which had won four of its previous five games before Tuesday, dropped to 4-12.
“Our pitchers were filling up the zone and changing speeds. Our defense wasn’t making errors and we weren’t walking people,” John said. “Against Baxter, we had our best offensive day at the plate. Humboldt did a good job of keeping us off balance.”
Up next
Cherryvale faced Eureka on Thursday then heads to Bluestem on Monday.
“We’ve got to keep building and keep getting better,” John said. “We’ve got some winnable games coming up. But we’ve got to have better at-bats. We’ve proven we can do that. We just have to be more consistent.”
As for Humboldt, it hosts Osage City on Monday.
“We’ve got to see more consistency at the plate,” Miller said. “When our pitching is there, they always give us a chance to win. We just have to start putting up more runs.”
