CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa-- Junior Tyler Willis (Waverly) had the walkoff single to left field to help Wartburg win 4-3 over Central and advance to the Iowa Conference Tournament Championship Game Saturday.



The Knights took the 1-0 lead in the third as Willis drove in senior Jackson Litterer (Waverly) on his single to right centerfield.

Central took the 2-1 lead in the fourth and plated another run in the seventh.

The Orange and Black did not have a baserunner advance past first in the sixth, seventh or eighth innings. In their last at-bats, senior Blake Wilson (Bettendorf) hit a single to centerfield and moved to second on wild pitch. Junior Milton Croes (Noord, Aruba) drew a walk and then sophomore Mike Brown (Bettendorf) hit a chopper to the pitcher. Brown reached first safely, but the pitcher airmailed the throw to allow both baserunners to score which tied the game.

Junior Robbie Anstoetter (Farley) entered as a pinch runner for Brown and sophomore Ty Mougin (Walford) was also walked. Litterer struck out to give Wartburg one more chance to win. Willis worked it to a full count and then had the walkoff hit to left field.

"He was working me on the outside corner and when I finally got a full count, I wanted to put the ball in play," said Willis. "I wanted to keep fighting and keep our season going."

"Pretty much anything that went wrong did went wrong, did," said head coach Joel Holst. "We played good defense, had good pitching and just kind of hung around. Our offense was struggling with coming up with key hits. Hopefully we continue to play good defense and our pitching has been good enough to win. Parker (Bolt) did a really nice job there to scratch it out and had things go our way."

Wartburg will now face Coe at 1 p.m.

Wartburg Circuit recap