(Oakland, IA) – The Riverside Bulldogs finished off the regular season on a good note after dropping four straight games and picked things up to win the last two. Riverside finished out the regular season with an 8-13 record and 5-11 overall in Western Iowa Conference play. Head Coach Cole Chapin isn’t looking at the wins and losses but is expecting his boys to play well at the right time.
The difference between Riverside and other teams is the competition throughout the regular season. When you dive into their schedule, the Bulldogs played six games alone to state-ranked or honorable-mention teams that were in their conference including Tri-Center, Logan-Magnolia, and Underwood. While playing some of the toughest competition in southwest Iowa, the Bulldogs now get prepared to showcase their talents in postseason action.
Riverside is batting .251 as a team with Grady Jeppesen leading the way as the only player with 50+ plate appearances to average over .300 with a .458 batting average. Coach Chapin doesn’t look at batting average as he does fielding percentage at an impressive .914 while the pitcher’s ERA sits at 6.24 as a team. But even as the batting average may look low, the Bulldogs have started to excel as a team when at the plate in their last few games.
The main defensive goal is simple, throw strikes and don’t walk batters while making good plays on the field. On offense, it is to swing at anything in the strike zone and make the CAM defense pull for those outs. Riverside battles a CAM Cougars team that went 13-8 in the regular season and statistically looks better on paper, but the paper isn’t able to play any factor in this game. If Riverside can get the bats rolling and play a solid defensive game, they may be advancing in postseason play.
Riverside travels to CAM to battle the Cougars in postseason action on Saturday, July 6th with the opening pitch at 7:00 p.m. KSOM 96.5 will be giving you the live broadcast of this game with a pregame show at 6:45 p.m.
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