ANAMOSA— Taking on one of not only the most talented teams in the WaMaC Conference Monday June 22, the Beckman baseball team was also one of the hottest in the league as they entered Anamosa.
“Beckman is a good ball club,” said Raider baseball coach Kevin Barnes after his team pulled off a major upset with a thrilling 4-2 triumph over the Blazers in the first game of the doubleheader. “Whenever you have beaten a Beckman team, you know you’ve beaten one of the best and they also came into this doubleheader as one of the hottest teams in the league too.”
Anamosa (7-16, 4-11) battled pitch for pitch for four shutout innings until the visitors broke through with a two-run fifth.
“”We faced one of their best pitchers and until the bottom of the fifth, he was pretty dominating,” said Barnes, who threw Nathan Kaufman in the opener. “Nate kept them at bay all game long giving up two unearned runs in the fourth.”
The Raiders answered the Beckman two-run fourth frame with a huge four-run rally of their own in the fifth.
Mitch Hewitt reached on an error before Spencer Wood made his way on base after getting hit by a pitch. Kaleb Kilburg ripped a single to load the bases before Todd Nielsen hit into a fielder’s choice that scored pinch-runner Gavin Eilers.
Dalton Ahrendsen followed with a huge double to score Wood and Nielsen before a key Beckman error off the bat of Kaufman allowed Ahrendsen to cross the plate.
“We managed to string some hits together in the fifth after an error and a hit batsman,” said Barnes. “The big blow was Dalton’s double to the left-center gap.”
Kaufman made the two-run lead stand tossing a sensational complete game four-hitter at the Blazers.
“Another guy who deserves a lot of credit for this win is Mitch Hewitt,” said Barnes of his starting catcher. “Nate isn’t easy to catch because his ball moves so much. On top of that, Mitch threw out both guys who tried to steal. He really played well back there.”
Kaufman worked around a seventh-inning error to strike out the side to finale the triumph.
Ahrendsen led the seven-hit Anamosa offense with two hits.
The second game of the twin-bill didn’t go as well as the Raiders suffered a 12-2, five-inning defeat.
“We came out flat in the second game,” said Barnes. “It all starts with pitching and the heat got to Seth (Deaver). He was not himself and eventually came out of the game not feeling well.”

ANAMOSA — Streaking to their seventh win in a row hosting Maquoketa Valley Thursday, June 25, the Anamosa softball team used a no-hitter from pitcher Mallory Lacy and powerful 15-hit offensive attack to roll to an easy 7-0 rout over the Wildcats.
“We’ve been getting the bats going lately and we sure had them going again against Maquoketa Valley,” said Raider softball coach Ryan Olsem as the winning streak is the longest for the Anamosa program in four years. “The 7-0 final score was way closer than the game actually was. We should have ended this game early with all the runners we had on base but just couldn’t get the timely hit when we needed it to close the game out early.”
Anamosa (15-12, 7-10) led just 1-0 into the third inning when the hosts broke the game open.
Chelsey Bildstein, who singled home Kayla Sanborn with the game’s first run in the first frame for the hosts, did it again in the third before Kelly Colehour and Kaity Meade both crossed the plate giving the Raiders a 4-0 lead.
In the fifth the hosts went right back to work scoring three more times.
Lacy was her normal sensational self tossing a no-hitter while fanning a whopping 15 Wildcat batters.
Sanborn topped the Raider offense with four hits while also scoring three times. Bildstein added three more hits.
The week began for the Raiders with an impressive doubleheader sweep hosting Beckman Monday, June 22.
In the opener Anamosa rolled to a 6-0 victory using a big four-run first frame to their advantage.
Sanborn, Dole, Meade and Kellie Vaughn all crossed the plate in the pivotal opening inning.
The hosts added a two-run fourth frame as Lindsey Bildstein and Sanborn both scored.
Lacy hurled a three-hitter and struck out 16 batters mastering the Blazers from the pitchers’ circle.
The second game saw more Raider dominance in an 8-0 rout.
Colehour and Meade scored in the very first inning as Anamosa took control early.
“If the first game wasn’t impressive enough offensively, we come back and do even better in the second game against Beckman,” said Olsem. “Kelly Colehour had a huge game at the plate and our girls did a nice job of not allowing the Beckman coaches and fans to rattle them. We just kept attacking and never let up.”
The Blazer coach was thrown out of the second game and both contests had to be delayed for several minutes while umpires had to deal with unruly Beckman fans.
“Their fans tried to rattle Mallory and she just wouldn’t have any of it,” said Olsem. “She’s so mentally tough, all it did was just make her even stronger.”
Anamosa scored four times in the third then added single runs in the fourth and fifth frames.
Lacy worked both games and in her 14 innings of work fanned a whopping 26 Beckman batters while allowing only six hits total.