Sports Editor
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Saturday, at Johnston, the Toreadors stopped the Dragons, 8-4.
Johnston is the defending class 4-A champion. In fact, they were a very rare 40-0 a season ago, and by virtue of returning four or five of their veteran players, were ranked No. 1 in this year's pre-season poll issued by the Iowa Baseball Coaches Association.
The Boone squad was rated No. 8, pre-season, in class 3-A.
In other weekend action, the Toreadors stopped Algona, 1-0, Friday night at Memorial Park in a pitching classic and then lost a one-run decision, 5-4, to an outstanding Lewis Central team Saturday, hours after that win over Johnston.
BHS coach Rick Davis explained his squad's victory over Johnston this way, "Blane Reutter pitched very well. He was anticipating this start for a long time and had Johnston eating out of his hand each inning. He set up hitters effectively and that allowed him to pitch to his strengths each inning. We put pressure on them each inning and they knew that with Reutter in command they could be in for a dog fight."
Speaking of pressure, the Toreador offense immediately put Johnston in a hole, scoring three first-inning runs.
"That got Johnston back on their heels and made them press," Coach Davis said.
Reutter faced 29 batters and gave up seven hits, four earned runs, walked two and struckout seven.
Offensively, Cris Ely led the way with three hits while Josh Frank, Damon Moran and Reutter had two hits each. Frank knocked home a run while Moran had a double and five RBI and Reutter had a pair of RBI.
Logan Busch, Ben Byriel, Cole Wigert and Ryan Titman all added one hit each to the BHS attack.
Coach Davis concluded, "Their offense couldn't match up to ours with Reutter on the mound and that was the difference maker."
Later in the day, Saturday, the Boone squad, according to coach Davis, "let down a little bit after the big Johnston win. We did not play with the intensity that we needed. We extended every inning with some kind of mental or physical mistake and you can't do that against a good team like Lewis Central."
Ely was the starting pitcher. He went four innings and gave up four runs on five hits, walked three, hit two and struckout eight.
Byriel relieved and gave up one run on three hits with one strikeout and one hit batsman.
Offensively, the Toreadors were "a bit flat."
Moran had two hits and an RBI, Reutter two hits with two RBI and Busch, Ely, Byriel and Titman had one hit each. Josh Frank had an RBI.
Friday, Frank and Algona's pitcher, Brad Collison, locked up in a classic pitcher's duel.
Frank allowed only two hits, walked three and fanned 15. Coach Davis said, "He was on top of his game, stayed ahead in the count and forced the Algona batters to hit his pitch."
No runs were scored until the Boone squad punched home a winning marker in the seventh inning.
Titman started the winning rally with a double. Busch pushed Titman to third with a single and Ely drove him home with the game's only run.
Reutter and Frank had two hits each while Titman, Ely and Busch had one safety each.
The Toreadors are 3-1 coming into tonight's game at Perry.
