The Iowa Mennonite School baseball team saw their run of district titles come to an end Monday at the hands of the Pekin Panthers by an 11-7 score. The Panthers jumped out early with a five run, 10 batter first inning, forcing IMS to play catch up the rest of the night. The Panthers would eventually stretch the advantage to 8-0 before IMS got on the board in the fifth with Eli Ours supplying the contact on runs for Luke Schrock and Noah Miller. IMS got their third run in the sixth when Cody Jones drove in London Schrock with a base hit. Pekin continued their hot night offensively, pushing across three more, to take an 11-3 lead into the bottom of the seventh. In the seventh inning, IMS batted around, scoring four times, the big blow a bases loaded, bases clearing double from Cody Jones to pull Iowa Mennonite within 11-7 but it wasn’t enough. After the game IMS head coach Danny Hershberger talked about what he saw as the difference in the game. “Pekin has a lot of guys that can hit the ball and they square it up a lot. They don’t chase. Credit to them, they are playing some great baseball right now. Our goal was to put the ball in play and make them make plays on defense. Doing that we at least gave ourselves a chance. We finished one game out of a conference title this year, first time we have finished that high in a while. I’m proud of how we played. Our seniors have been a big part of it for a while now.”

Jones led IMS going two for four at the plate with four driven in. Blake Bontrager took the loss on the hill for IMS going three and a third innings. IMS wraps up the season with a 13-8 overall record and will say goodbye to seniors Jacob Boller, Blake Bontrager, Trevor Leyden and Cody Jones. Pekin advances to play No. 4 Calamus-Wheatland Tuesday at the substate final in Solon.