Sports : On to State: Vikings defeat Williamsburg; to play in Des Moines Tuesday

Vikings celebrate the final out of their Sub-State victory at Williamsburg. They play in DM Tuesday.

W. I. N.

Whatever Is Necessary.

That’s the philosophy of Coach Jim Struve and the 2015 Vinton-Shellsburg baseball team is taking to the State Tournament next Tuesday.

The Vikings did whatever was necessary on Wednesday night at Williamsburg, with offense, pitching and defense. In the bottom of the first, with two Raider runners crossing home plate and the batter who hit a line drive into the right field corner rounding second, right fielder Jordan Womochil relayed the ball to the infield, where Tyler Rippel tagged out the runner who tried to stretch a double into a triple.

That play ended the Williamsburg rally and turned the game around.

In the top of the second, the Vikings scored three runs en route to a 5-3 win in the Substate 5 game. The Vikes advance as the 8th seed to the State Tournament, where they will play top-seeded Waverly-Shell Rock at 11 a.m. Tuesday, July 28, at Principal Park in Des Moines – home of the Iowa Cubs.

Viking sophomore Scott Wirth was the winning pitcher. After struggling in the first inning, giving up a few hits and two runs, Wirth settled down and kept the ball down for the next five innings, holding the Raiders to just one more run. Tyler Rippel came on in the 7th after the lead-off Raider doubled. He walked one Raider but struck out another and got two more to pop out to infielders to end the game.

“He wanted the ball,” said Coach Struve of Rippel, who was the winning pitcher in the two district victories and has thrown 10 straight shutout innings in the post-season.

The Vikings relied on strong defense, timely hitting and taking advantage of five Williamsburg errors.

Williamsburg tied the game at 3 in the bottom of the third, but the Vikings regained the lead in the fourth and added a seventh-inning insurance run.

Sophomores Tanner Davis and Will Edwards each added two hits and scored a run. Rippel, Womochil and Jared Thompson also scored for the Vikes.

“Good things happen to good people, and this is a great bunch of guys,” Struve told a crowd of students, family members and fans who had gathered in the parking lot to celebrate.

Struve said the Vikings have been playing with confidence; although they play top-seeded W-SR in the first round of the play-offs, Wednesday’s victory shows them that “anything can happen,” said the coach.

“This is the greatest feeling,” assistant coach Daniel Charlier, who pitched the Vikings into the State Tournament in 2009, told the players.

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