Orange City Iowa — Unity Christian advanced to the Class 2A District 1 semifinals with a 3-2 home win over Sheldon Saturday night. Unity will meet West Sioux in the 5:00 pm semifinal on Tuesday at Larchwood. The Falcons earned the lower bracket bye.
Unity scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the first inning. Clayton Bosma was hit by a pitch and Austin Van Donge followed a ground out with a single to the left side of the infield. Both came in to score on a 2-run single by Dylan Liston for the early 2-0 lead.
The game settled into a pitchers dual after that. Unity added a run in the 4th when Van Donge reached on an error and later scored on a Micah Goslinga Double to the gap in right center field to make the score 3-0 in favor of the Knights.
Sheldon got on the board in the 6th inning as Luke Van Beek singled up the middle and scored on a TK Lang double to left field that landed at the base of the fence. At that point the score was 3-1 in favor of Unity. Sheldon opened the top of the 7th with a bang when Cody Vaselaar drove the ball over the fence in left to make it a 3-2 contest. Unity was able to get the final three outs with no further scoring and move on to the semis with a 3-2 win.
Micah Goslinga went the first 6 innings giving up 2 earned runs on 8 hits. He struck out 3 and walked 2. Tanner Schouten came on after Vaselaar’s home run and retired the side on a fly ball to right and a pair of strike outs for the save.
Luke Van Beek took the loss for Sheldon. He gave up 2 earned runs on 7 hits. He struck out 5 and did not walk a batter.
With the win Unity is 17-11 on the year. Sheldon finishes at 6-15.
