Rams down TJ, 7-5

    Grant Stivers got his second win and the Glenwood baseball team improved to 2-1 on the season with a 7-5 victory over Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson on Friday.

    The Rams jumped on the Yellowjackets early, leading 5-0 after four innings before T.J. got to Ram starter Justin Fisher.
    The junior right-hander pitched five shutout innings before getting in trouble in the sixth. The Yellowjackets responded with four runs before Elam pulled Fisher with the bases loaded and two outs. On came Stivers who hit a batter to score a run and tie the game before fanning the final two men he faced to end the inning.
    In the seventh, the Rams pushed across two runs to slip away with the win.
    “We had some timely hits,” said Glenwood coach Bret Elam. “The wind was blowing in so we and they really were playing in because we knew the ball wouldn’t carry over anybody’s head. We played some small ball and executed when we needed to.”
    Sam Jameson’s sacrifice fly to score a runner proved the game winner.
    Stivers retired five straight batters in a 1 2/3 innings of work to earn his second win of the season.

C.B. St. Albert 7
Glenwood 6
    Nick Gantt’s sixth inning single lifted Council Bluffs St. Albert to a 7-6 win over Glenwood in non-conference baseball on Thursday.
    The Rams got down  5-2 after three innings before rallying for two runs each in the fifth and sixth innings to go up 6-5 heading into the bottom of the sixth. But a solo home run by Jimmy Hawk off Ram pitcher Alec Forbes knotted the game at 6-6 when Glenwood coach Bret Elam thought the inning should have been over.
    “There’s two outs, two strikes and Alec gets the third strike, our catcher (Brady Douma) didn’t even have to move his glove and the umpire calls it a ball,” Elam said. “The next pitch, he (Hawk) hits a home run and its a tie ball game.”
    The Rams went down in order in the top of the seventh.
    Corey Bertini started for Glenwood on the hill but exited after developing soreness in his throwing arm in the fourth inning. Forbes came on to pitch the final three innings, recording the loss.
    “Corey didn’t throw too bad but we needed him to go a little further,” Elam said. “And we didn’t play real great defense. There’s a lot of inexperience playing out there so we’re working through that. But the kids know they have to make the plays. We’re having growing pains.”
    The Rams committed just one error in the scorebook but a misplayed pop up in the sixth cost the Rams’ an easy out and shows what Elam called, a young team with a lot of inexperienced kids playing out of position.
    “We hope someone can step up and take advantage of the situation and we can run with it,” he said. “We have to get better and we know it. We knew we weren’t going to go undefeated.”
    The Rams finished with 10 hits.