Baseball: Dixon gets hot in 2nd inning, rolls past Rock Falls

DIXON – Rock Falls led Dixon by two runs after the first inning of their baseball game Monday at Veterans Memorial Field.

Then the Dukes turned the tables.

With 18 unanswered runs, including nine in the second inning, Dixon claimed an 18-2, four-inning win over the Rockets.

“[The hitting] was great today. Everyone was making solid contact and just driving the ball today,” Dixon senior catcher Aiden Wiseman said. “We all hit together as a group, and that’s what made us successful. I think coming into this game, we were like, ‘All right. We’ve got to hammer the ball in order to beat these guys.’ And that’s what we did today.”

Rock Falls (8-9) took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning on a one-out, two-run double by junior Cadon Schulz.

But it didn’t last for long.

Dixon (13-2) scored nine runs in the bottom of the second inning to build a commanding lead.

“We have a long week. We started a freshman that hasn’t started yet, so they put the ball in play really hard. They hit the ball really well,” Rock Falls coach Donnie Chappell said. “You can’t throw a freshman and make eight errors behind him. It is what it is. We’ve done this. We’ll probably come out tomorrow and be a good team. You never know what the day is. We’re just bipolar.”

Wiseman started the rally with a leadoff double and scored the first run on a James Leslie-induced error. Sophomore Brady Lawrence doubled to score the tying run, and senior Collin Scott singled to bring in the go-ahead run. Up next, senior Alex Harrison hammered a two-run double for a 5-2 lead.

Senior Bryce Feit followed with an RBI double, senior Max Clark delivered an RBI single, and Wiseman hit another RBI double to stretch the lead to six runs. Easton Roux, Wiseman’s courtesy runner, came home on a wild pitch to make it 9-2 Dukes.

“It was pretty big,” Clark said about the momentum swing in the second inning. “We usually start hitting late – like third to fourth inning – and we came alive right there, and it felt good.”

Dixon tacked on five runs in the third inning and four in the fourth to claim the run-rule win.

Harrison hit a two-run triple to left field, and Feit hammered an RBI double to left in back-to-back at-bats in the bottom of the third inning.

After a flyout, Clark ripped an RBI double and Wiseman roped an RBI single to expand the lead to 14-2.

“We were kind of dead in the beginning, and then once we started hitting, those runs kept coming in,” Wiseman said. “Everyone on the bench started getting up, we started chanting and all that stuff, and that just really boosted our team in order for us to pull out the win.”

In the top of the fourth, Clark worked a 1-2-3 inning. In the bottom of the fourth, Dixon plated four more runs to finish the win.

Senior Quade Richards started the run with an RBI single, Clark reached on an error to score another run, and Wiseman slammed a two-run triple to cap the scoring.

Wiseman finished 4 for 4 with four RBIs, including a triple and two doubles, and Harrison went 2 for 4 with four RBIs, including a double and a triple, for Dixon. Also for the Dukes, Feit went 3 for 4 with two RBIs, Clark went 2 for 4 with two RBIs, and Lawrence went 3 for 3 with an RBI.

Clark earned the complete-game win, allowing two earned runs on four hits and striking out seven with two walks.

“I felt pretty untouchable,” Clark said about his performance on the mound. “Curveball felt good. Fastball felt good. Hitters were sometimes late, sometimes early, so it was good.”

Junior Austin Castaneda went 2 for 2, and Schulz went 1 for 2 with a two-run double for Rock Falls.