Warhawks down North Iowa in semifinal

     It wasn’t the 17-strikeout performance from a week ago, but Mitchell Halloran was dominant nonetheless in the West Fork baseball team’s 10-2 Class 1A District 4 victory over North Iowa on Tuesday, July 16 at Mason City Newman High School.

     This time, Halloran struck out nine, scattered four hits, walked two and hit two with pitches. Ironically both batters that were hit and walked were the top two in the lineup that led to the Bison’s only two runs.

     “He did a good job,” West Fork coach Lance Thompson said of Halloran. “He struggled a little bit at the beginning, wasn’t the dominant performance he had last time, but he competes every pitch on the mound and that’s what he did tonight. Even though he was struggling, he found a way to get back in the strike zone and give us some good quality innings. And gave us a chance to be available for Saturday as well.”

     Halloran added, “I felt good, my arm felt good so I knew I was ready to go. I last pitched Monday and that was a good outing for me.”

     Also hitting 2-for-3 with two walks and scored four times for the Warhawks, Halloran improved his batting average to .297.

     “I didn’t feel very good going into tonight hitting, so I was hoping I was getting it back tonight and I did, felt better tonight,” Halloran said. “I knew he threw a lot of junk, so I was sitting curveball for a while and waited on a fast ball and got one off of that, too.”

     In fact, the top three hitters in West Fork’s order went a combined 4-for-10 with four walks, a hit by pitch and scored nine of the 10 runs. Add Lukas Wogen as the clean-up hitter and the Warhawks were 6-for-12 with six walks, two hit-by-pitches.

     Wogen also drove in a pair.

     “They’ve been pretty solid for us all season,” Thompson said. “We’ve kind of monkeyed around with it a little bit the first three weeks of the season and then we settled on this lineup and they’ve done a good job. Carter Meints has done a good job of getting on base and establishing that top of the order with good solid contacts and we are able to manufacture runs after that, as well.”

     Speculating what turned out to be the case, the Warhawks were set to face top-ranked and defending state champions Mason City Newman in Saturday’s district final back at Newman. West Fork lost to the Knights 12-2 at its place only a week ago in a makeup game.

     “We should be able to make sure we’re able to compete and bring our best game,” Thompson said.

     Halloran added, “I’m ready for another one (with Newman). They got us the first one, but I’m ready to come back and try again.”