Photo Courtesy of Hillcrest Academy Yearbook

The Hillcrest Academy Raven baseball team ran their winning streak to three to close the regular season, finishing off the Louisa-Muscatine Falcons Tuesday at Waterloo’s Riverfront Stadium 3-0. The two teams were scoreless through three, but the Southeast Iowa Superconference North Division champs broke through with a pair of runs in the fourth and the Ravens tacked on another in the sixth to reach the final margin. That was more than enough offense for the Hillcrest staff, who shut out the Falcons behind the arms of Phoenix Anderson and Lawson Schrock who outdueled Xavier Wheeler and Owen Klockseim of L-M. The two Raven pitchers covered seven innings, six and two thirds for Anderson, giving up just five hits, two walks and striking out four. Offensively, Rowan Miller drove in all three runs on two hits. Seth Ours, Liam Schrock, and Lawson Schrock each had a hit. Lincoln Miller scored twice and Lawson Schrock once. Raven head coach Danny Hershberger broke down the win with KCII Sports this week.

Hershberger, “Phoenix (Anderson) has been lights out for us all year and he did a great job of throwing strikes, mixing his pitches up and the defense stepped up and made plays behind him. We had a really nice double play ball. Lawson (Schrock) came in late and did a great job of closing the game out and stranding guys on base. Really nice performance from those two. When Rowan (Miller) has an opportunity to drive guys in, he steps up and gets that done. He had another two-RBI triple for us. The bottom of our order also did a great job of getting on base and it was one of the nights where we needed it.”

Hillcrest finishes the regular season 13-7 while L-M moves to 6-12. The Ravens open the postseason Saturday at Highland against HLV in a game that can be heard on KCII.