Johnston baseball rolls by Waukee Northwest to reach fourth straight Class 4A state title game
IOWA CITY — Any time Waukee Northwest tried creeping back into Thursday's Class 4A state semifinal, Johnston squashed all momentum and kept rolling along. The effort has this perennial high school baseball title contender back on the doorstep of another championship.
Top-seeded Johnston scored in each of the first four frames and never let the upstart Wolves gain traction, leading to an 11-3 Dragons win at Duane Banks Field in Iowa City. The win sends Johnston (35-4) to its fourth straight championship game, where it'll get the Iowa City High-Dowling Catholic winner at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
"We play to a standard," Johnston third baseman Will Nuss said, "and if everyone does that, we're expected to be here."
Surviving Thursday's affair was about keeping offensive pressure on Waukee Northwest (27-13). The Dragons plated two in the first, two more in the second, three more in the third and another in fourth, preventing the Wolves from ever finding solid footing.
The first big Johnston jolt arrived in the second on Will Nuss' two-out, two-run homer with the wind blowing out to right field. That handed the Dragons a 4-1 advantage. Momentum from that spilled into the third, where Johnston countered Waukee Northwest's two-run top half with a big three-spot in the bottom half. The Dragons loaded the bases on a single, fielding error and a walk before getting a sacrifice fly and another big two-out knock from Nuss. The third baseman's two-run single supplied Johnston with a 7-3 cushion.
That was more than enough support for senior southpaw Jake Pemble, who yielded four hits and three runs with 10 strikeouts over 6 1/3 quality innings. Waukee Northwest jumped out to a 1-0 lead after Weston Barber tripled to open the game and later scored on an RBI groundout, but Pemble allowed minimal damage the rest of the way.
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After falling to Pleasant Valley in last year's title game, Johnston has had its eyes set on returning to this moment and delivering a different ending. The Dragons are now seven innings away from making that happen.
"This is what we worked all offseason for," Pemble said. "Everybody knows we got second last year. We worked our tail off to get back here. And now, we've just got to go get what is ours."
Dargan Southard covers Iowa and UNI athletics, recruiting and preps for the Des Moines Register, HawkCentral.com and the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Email him at msouthard@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter at @Dargan_Southard.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Johnston baseball dominates Waukee Northwest in 4A semifinal win
