The Washington Demon baseball team went to Cedar Rapids last night and did their job, beating Highland 11-1.

Washington started out the game with a huge first inning. Tanner Knupp led off with an error and stole his way around to third. Washington then had three batters walked before Blake Weidman stepped up and drove home a run on an RBI single. Bryce Craff reached on an error off the fielders choice. The Demons kept the bases loaded and chased the starter Jacob Michel after 2/3 of an inning. Adam Schwarz came in in relief, and Jacob Green drove a long ball to left field and reached on a three RBI double to make the score 8-0 after one.

Michael Gier pitched the first four for the Demons and threw a good game, getting himself into some count troubles early, but battling through. Washington got a ninth run in the fourth inning from a single from Walker Breard and an RBI single from Dakota Kron to make it 9-0. Highland scored their only run of the game in the fourth after a walk, and then a ball hit into left center field was misplayed and rolled past the outfielders to put two on in scoring position. Chase Rath stepped up and hit into a 4-3 play that scored Schwarz from third to make it 9-1.

The Demons put up two more runs in the game to go up 11-1 in the seventh, and Washington threw Tanner Knupp in the fifth and sixth and Mason Quigley in the seventh, with both pitchers not allowing a run.

Demon head coach Nathan Miller says all three pitcher did their job well on the mound.

“We got an outstanding effort from all three guys that threw, and you can see the confidence that Tanner [Knupp] is gaining with his pitching, you can see that Michael [Gier] last night, carried on with what he has done the last couple of weeks with throwing strikes. We are working on developing a curve ball, and we threw three or four curve balls last night and I was happy with the rotation on those, and then Mason [Quigley] getting his feet wet this year, a soccer kid that had a good senior season in soccer, and we are just now starting to see him get into the flow of his swing a little bit more and getting him onto the mound,” Miller said. “So we are starting to see some of those parts start to develop and some guys improve confidence wise.”

Jacob Green was 1-4 with three RBI’s, Tanner Knupp was 1-4 with two runs and an RBI, and Blake Weidman was 2-4 with a run and two RBI’s. On the mound, Gier got the win going four innings with three hits, one earned run, a walk and two strikeouts.

Highland had Schwarz go 0-3 and score the only run. Michel took the loss, going 2/3 of an inning, allowing one hit, seven runs, five earned, four walks and two strikeouts.

Washington is now 8-8 and plays Benton on Friday, while Highland is 10-9 and plays Pekin Tonight.