Le Mars beats Cherokee...in baseball

The Le Mars baseball team scored a huge 11-6 win over No. 3 and Class 2A defending state runner-up Cherokee on Thursday, fulfilling a major goal set by this season's team.

"I feel really good for this senior class," head coach Trent Eckstaine told me afterward, appearing more relieved than jubilant.

Tanner Dowling was 3-for-4 with six - count 'em, six - RBIs to lead the 'Dogs effort.

He put Le Mars on the board with an RBI single in the first inning on an 0-2 pitch that he essentially threw the bathead at the ball.

He put the 'Dogs up for good on another 0-2 pitch in the third. Cherokee ace Matt Koch - a Louisville recruit and 37th-round selection by the BoSox in last month's MLB draft - hung a slider and Dowling belted it over the fence for a grand slam.

That made it 6-4 and the 'Dogs kept adding to their lead to salt away the win.

Remember when you were in Little League and you had to face that one kid who was much bigger than everyone else and thew much harder?

Remember how your coach told you, "just make contact and the ball will go?"

That's basically what Dowling said about his homer afterward:

"I'm just going to credit that to (Koch's) fastball," he told me. "I just swung real easy and it went."

Cherokee didn't help itself as it made seven or eight errors, depending on whose scorebook you are viewing.

Check out Monday's Sentinel for full coverage of what will certainly be old news by that point.