Johnson’s walkoff single lifts Buena Vista to split in home finale

Dylan Johnson ended Buena Vista’s home schedule with a swing the local crowd will remember, lining a walk-off RBI single to left-center field in the bottom of the ninth for a 7-6 win over Nebraska Wesleyan in the nightcap of Tuesday’s doubleheader at BVU/Storm Lake High School Baseball Field.

The finish salvaged a split after the Prairie Wolves had won the opener 18-2, and it gave the Beavers a late snapshot of what has defined their season: a team that can absorb a punch, rally back and still leave the door open for frustration. Buena Vista entered the weekend at 9-22 overall and 5-12 in the American Rivers Conference, coming off its first league series win of the year against Coe.

The nightcap started with Buena Vista trailing 5-1 before the lineup caught fire. Connor Duong supplied the biggest jolt with a seventh-inning home run, his third of the season, and the Beavers kept stacking contact until they had erased the deficit. Johnson’s hit was his first of the game, and it scored Cooper Sobeck after Sobeck drew a one-out walk and moved into scoring position on Jack Schmaltz’s sharp single. Ean McDaniel then worked a perfect ninth in relief and earned the win, improving to 2-5.

Buena Vista finished the game with 10 hits and one error. Nebraska Wesleyan had eight hits and played cleanly behind its pitchers, but the Beavers made the bigger plays when the game tightened. Benjamin Byington went 2-for-4 with a run scored, and Jake Eddie added a triple and a run. Sobeck’s two triples in the doubleheader also carried season-long significance, with his seventh triple tying him for second on Buena Vista’s single-season list, one behind Brad Blum’s school record of eight set in 2009.

The opener told the opposite story. Buena Vista committed four errors and issued 11 walks as Nebraska Wesleyan broke the game open late and rolled to the 18-2 win. The split left the Beavers with one final home-memory from a season that has mixed uneven stretches with enough resilience to keep producing moments like Johnson’s ninth-inning winner in front of 65 fans.