One of the only high school baseball games in central Iowa took place in Adel last night.The Adel-Desoto-Minburn Tiger baseball team fought off severe weather in the county to play a 5:30 p.m. varsity first pitch against Raccoon River Conference rival Boone. As heard on True Country K 107.9, raccoonvalleyradio.com and the KKRF mobile app, Boone took the final game against ADM in a pitchers duel, 1-0. A majority of the game was played in a moderate downpour. Boone’s lone run came during a rain-soaked top of the sixth inning where a wild pitch by junior Logan Crannell plated Toreador junior Derek Rhinehart for the games only run. Controversy struck in the ADM half of the sixth inning. With the bases loaded and two outs, Crannell came to the plate with a chance to drive in at least the tying run. He worked pitcher Bret Price to a 3-1 count and had two borderline pitches get called strike two and three respectively. The final pitch hit the elbow of Crannell, but the home plate umpire ruled he initiated the hit. After the game, ADM head baseball coach Jason Book described what happened to conclude the sixth inning. “He did get hit by the pitch, and I thought ‘fantastic, we just got a run, even ball game, we are going to score another one and the go out and hold them, and we’ll win the game,” Book said, “He held them at the plate, and I assumed they were going to call a no pitch, because you can’t add a ball in that situation. (However) he said that (Crannell) stuck his elbow into the strike zone and got hit by the pitch. That creates strike three, the batters out and the innings over.”

The strikeout enraged some of the ADM players and forced senior Gage Fuller to the bench for the final inning. Both teams went scoreless in the last stanza. Crannell ended up throwing a complete game in a losing effort, allowing one earned run on five hits, walking four and striking out five. The loss drops ADM’s overall record to 7-11 overall and 1-7 inside the Raccoon River Conference. The Tigers continue their league season Friday against the Bondurant-Farrar Bluejays.