By Justin Ites

In a preview for the upcoming Region XI baseball tournament, Ellsworth Community College faced Iowa Central Community College Friday and Saturday in Fort Dodge.

The Tritons locked down the three seed with final scores of 16-6, 15-3 and 17-6 final scores.

Iowa Central (43-9, 21-6) flexed with the bats during the entire series, as they tallied 17 home runs.

Three Panthers - Gavin Doll, Jacob Koerselman and Aidan Martin - smacked round trippers in game one, but it was not enough to keep pace with the Tritons. The hosts hit five dingers in the 16-6 victory.

Koerselman added a second homer in game two of the series, but the offense was stymied by Triton pitcher Isaiah Brennan, who fanned 11 batters in six innings.

ECC hit three more homers in the series finale, and those came off the bats of Koerselman, Doll and Eric McGill.

The series sweep left the Panthers with a regular season record of 21-31 and 12-15 in Region XI.

ECC will carry the sixth seed into the tournament, as they face the Tritons on Thursday (3:30 p.m.) at Merchant's Park in Carroll. The winner of that game advances to a noon game on Friday (May 8) versus second-seeded Kirkwood (45-8, 22-5). The loser of the Thursday game must play again later that day versus the loser of the DMACC/Northeast CC contest.

Southeastern CC (43-13, 22-5) is the top seed.

For more coverage of ECC Athletics, visit https://www.timescitizen.com/sports/ecc/