(Denison) — The Denison-Schleswig baseball team is set to take on Glenwood in a district quarterfinal, against which the Monarchs picked up two wins this season.

Denison-Schleswig ended the regular season with a 16-10 record and a 10-10 record in Hawkeye Ten Conference play, putting them in fifth place in the conference.

“The guys stick together,” Denison Schleswig head coach Travis Wessell tells KMA Sports. “In baseball, you’re going to have the ups and downs, but teammates are always there for each other. We’ve got a great group of kids that come to practice and work hard every day. They don’t get down on each other.”

The Monarchs opened the season, winning seven of their first nine games. They faced adversity, however, in the middle of the season with a five-game losing streak.

“We started off with a 7-2 start and then ran into a little rough spot there for a week,” Wessell said. “A couple of injuries and just not playing clean baseball. Then some kids started getting healthy again, hopefully we’re playing good baseball leading into the postseason.”

Denison-Schleswig ended the regular season on Tuesday with a 9-7 win over Bishop Heelan (26-10).

“We threw strikes, pitched to contact,” Wessell said. “The one thing that I felt we did at the plate is we battled a little bit more with two strikes and strung some hits together.”

Junior Camdyn Nemitz (.327/.417/.356) leads the team in hits on the season with 34 hits. Just behind him is senior Cody Shulte (.359/.373/.413) with 33 hits. Junior Cole Kastner (.330/.465/.440) leads the team in RBI with 24 on 30 hits. Junior Linkin Beeck (.316/.455/.392) added 23 RBI on 25 hits.

On the mound, Nemitz, Shulte, and junior Andy Pederson split about the same amount of time pitching. Nemitz has thrown 44 1/3 innings with an ERA of 3.00, striking out 35 batters. Shulte has an ERA of 2.48 in 42 1/3 innings thrown and has struck out 28 batters. Pederson, who threw 39 1/3 innings this season, posted an ERA of 3.56 and struck out 19.

“We had a couple of injuries, but we’ve been battling through that,” Wessell said. We’ve been solid pitching, and a couple of times we’ve given too many free bases, but they correct that in practice. Solid pitching, throwing strikes, letting the other guys hit it, and when our defense is playing well, we’re pretty tough.”

The Monarchs now look to the postseason, where they start against Hawkeye Ten foe Glenwood (11-20). Denison-Schleswig took down the Rams twice this season in a doubleheader back on June 6th.

“We faced them (Glenwood) early on in the year, and every team is different by the time you face them early in the season to the end, Wessell said. Glenwood is very well-coached. Always typically have athletes; they have a couple of good pitchers looking at stats.  They’re going to be better than they were when we played, and hopefully, we are as well.”

The full interview with Denison-Schleswig head coach Travis Wessell can be found below.

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