CENTERVILLE — It wasn’t pretty, but the Indian Hills Community College baseball team got the job done against Muscatine Community College during the first round of the Region XI Tournament on Friday afternoon. Despite four errors, IHCC held on for a 5-4 victory.

Indian Hills played well early, jumping out to a 5-0 lead through five innings of play. Falcon pitcher Christian Rivera was equally impressive, surrendering no runs and just one hit through five innings of work.

The No. 3 seeded Cardinals fought back, scoring three runs in the sixth inning and one run in the seventh frame to cut IHCC’s lead to 5-4 after seven innings of play.

Tyler Fries relieved Rivera in the eighth and held MCC scoreless over the next inning and one-third. After two Cardinal runners reached base with just one out in the ninth inning, Falcon reliever Travis Parker came into the game and closed the door on Muscatine, earning the save during the one-run victory.

“Our approach at the start of the game was outstanding. We came out and got some early runs, which is what we need to do,” commented IHCC head coach Cam Walker. “We missed some chances early by leaving guys on base. But I was really happy with the way the guys played. We struggled a little bit at the end but we didn’t give in, we kept battling.”

Rivera had a solid outing on the mound, earning the victory after scattering four hits and striking out six during seven innings of work. Rivera was also 1-for-3 with an RBI and run scored at the plate.

“He’s not only one of our top pitchers but he’s one of our top hitters,” said Walker, referring to Rivera. “We thought it was important to get his pitching out of the way early in the tournament in a big and now he can focus on hitting the rest of the way.”

IHCC sophomore outfielder and Ottumwa native Bryan Baum was the Falcons top offensive performer, going a perfect 4-for-4 at the plate with a home run and two runs batted in.

“He’s (Baum) really been swinging the bat pretty well. I had a lot of confidence in him at the plate today. He’s the kind of guy that when he’s hitting the ball hard he can carry us. He had a great day for us,” Walker said.

IHCC will now the face Iowa Western today. Top-seeded IWCC defeated Southwestern 8-0 Friday evening. This sets up a contest between the top two seeds in the second round at 2 p.m. today.

After being swept by Iowa Western in four conference games this season, Walker feels that the Falcons will need to score early against ninth-ranked Reivers.

“We’ll need to jump on them early. I told these guys coming into the tournament that we need to have a good first two innings and a good last two innings which is really important in nine-inning games. They’re the favorites and we’re the underdogs so we don’t have a lot of pressure on us,” stated Walker.

Pitcher Josh Gibbs will likely be the starter today for Indian Hills.

“He (Gibbs) keeps the ball down consistently and I think he’ll take us deep into the game. When he gets tired his ball tends to stay down and move a little more,” added Walker.

In the first game of the tournament, Southwestern defeated Marshalltown Community College 6-5 in extra innings to advance to face Iowa Western on Friday night.