Waterloo makes short work of Mount Vernon in season-opening baseball win

Throw some shoulder pads and helmets on the Waterloo Bulldogs baseball team and they still wouldn’t look any more intimidating than they do with bats in their hands.

A physically large and strong Waterloo team slugged out a 10-1 win over Mount Vernon on Wednesday, getting a home run from Erik Kaiser and solid pitching from Tyler McAlister and Noah Thaggard.

“I’ve been doing this awhile and I haven’t seen many teams that looked like that one through nine,” Mount Vernon coach Tim Holloway said after watching the Bulldogs (1-0) pile up 11 hits that included a homer, two doubles and a triple while also flashing speed on the bases.

Key performers

Arkansas recruit Jordan McFarland made his Waterloo debut by collecting a pair of hits, including an RBI single in the sixth, and reaching base in three of his four plate appearances.

Waterloo baseball season preview, plus video of Jordan McFarland

With major league scouts from the St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, New York Mets and Kansas City Royals watching, McFarland saw primarily breaking pitches.

“I don’t know why anybody would give him too much to hit,” Holloway said of McFarland, chosen National Player of the Year recently by Perfect Game USA. “It’s not just him, they’ve got a lot of them. They just keep coming at you, a lot of big strong kids in that lineup. You can tell they’ve worked at it.”

McAlister had an RBI triple in the first while Chase Rubemeyer had a double, a single and two RBIs. Kaiser, headed to Vanderbilt on a pitching scholarship, blasted his solo homer leading off the fourth inning while Kane Osterhage added an RBI single.

“One of the reasons we’re excited about our offense is we do think we’re more than a two- or three- guy lineup,” Waterloo coach Mark Vogel said. “I like our offense from a speed standpoint, too. We can come at you a lot of different ways.”

Vogel seemed a bit on edge in the season opener. Perhaps all the preseason hype surrounding his team, ranked seventh in the state by PrepBaseballReport.com, was getting to him?

Not a chance.

“I think we’ve got to keep them from getting comfortable,” he said. “They’re already pretty comfortable and our job is to stay focused and be driven each day, because we are athletic and we can do some things. But we’ve got to get after it every day.”

Key sequence

McAlister, who signed with Missouri State, allowed two hits and one unearned run while striking out four in four innings. Thaggard, headed to Kaskaskia College, allowed four hits in three scoreless innings.

This was a 3-2 Mount Vernon team that reached the 3A sectional championship game last season.

“They’re obviously very talented,” Holloway said. “We’re not at full strength, we’ve got some guys out. We know we’ve got to close the gap against them and we’ve got a long way to go.”

Waterloo led 6-1 in the fourth, then tacked on four more runs against a series of relievers in the sixth with four walks aiding the process.

McFarland hit second, which means better pitches to hit for Osterhage in the leadoff spot and McAlister in the No. 3 hole.

“He’s had a great attitude,” Osterhage said of McFarland. “He’s real humble and it’s easy to hit in front of him. You get a lot of fastballs.”

Osterhage helped Waterloo win a state soccer championship last fall, but there was nowhere near the hype this baseball team has received.

“It’s been good, but we try not to listen to it,” he said. “We just go out there and play. There’s a lot of expectations, but we just try to cancel it out and just go out there and play.”

Jake Wylie was 2-for-3 with a double for Mount Vernon.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 8:54 PM with the headline "Waterloo makes short work of Mount Vernon in season-opening baseball win."