Great pitching, solid defense and two crooked numbers powered the Indianola baseball team to a doubleheader sweep at Norwalk Monday night. The Indians won the first game 5-2 behind a five-run first inning, then scored three runs in the fourth to win the nightcap 3-0. Both games were streamed live on kniakrls.com (KNIA3).

Indianola senior Daniel Kuebler pitched the first six innings of game one, allowing five hits and two runs on a towering two-run homer by Norwalk’s CJ Davis in the bottom of the fifth. Freshman Asher Brueck was even more impressive in game two, allowing just four hits in six scoreless frames while making his first varsity start. Kaden Ritchie closed out the final inning of both contests for his sixth and seventh saves of the season.

The Warriors’ pitching was also solid as DJ Harris and Briley Purcell combined to work 11 innings on the night, but the biggest difference in the outcomes was defense. The Indians committed only one error in the two games while Norwalk was charged with nine.

Indianola coach Jon Fitzpatrick tells KNIA-KRLS Sports that it was nice to see the pitching and defense work together for two full games. “We’ve had really good pitching all season long, and tonight we were able to play defense behind it and that’s something that’s kind of bit us in the butt the first third of the season,” Fitzpatrick said. “So that was really nice to be able to make those routine plays behind some really good pitching. Daniel is a senior in game one, but then you tip your cap to a freshman coming out and throwing as well as Asher did in game two.”

Brueck, who wasn’t told he was starting the nightcap until the sixth inning of game one, needed just 65 pitches to get through the sixth. The Indians’ three-run fourth was ignited by Brady Blake’s double and also included three sacrifice bunts – two of which resulted in errors – and an infield RBI single by Cooper Belt.

Indianola totaled seven hits in the entire doubleheader, with four of them coming in game one’s five-run first. Luke Rockhold opened the night with a triple and Bennett Brueck’s two-RBI triple made it 2-0. Andrew DeWall added an RBI single and a pair of errors allowed two more runs to score.

Norwalk, which dropped to 3-9 overall and 1-4 in the Little Hawkeye Conference, was led by a pair of two-hit games from Davis, who belted his second home run of the year. The Warriors play a non-conference game at North Polk tonight at 7:30.

Indianola, now 11-6 overall and 3-2 in the Little Hawkeye, hosts Grinnell on Wednesday night.