St. Edmond pitcher Thomas Ehn recorded a one-hitter in a 10-0 victory in five innings for the Gaels. -Messenger photo by Britt Kudla

Jordan Miller believes his St. Edmond baseball team has set the foundation for the future success of the program.

At the same time, though, Miller is looking to continue putting up walls with this current group of players.

The Gaels added one of those walls here Friday night, scoring a 10-0 victory in five innings over Glidden-Ralston at Rogers Park.

With the win, St. Edmond (13-11 overall) clinched a .500 record this year and earned a second home Class 1A, District 6 postseason game on Tuesday night vs. AGWSR. The Cougars rolled past Colo-Nesco in the opener of the doubleheader, 10-0 in five.

“It’s all really about building the foundation of what we want our house to look like,” Miller said. “We’ve got that set. Now, this postseason run could be where we start to build some walls and really put touches on what we want it to look like.

“We can take those first steps, and with the young guys we have, we can continue to build that house for years to come.”

One of those underclassmen got the start on the mound, as sophomore Thomas Ehn pitched a one-hitter, striking out six while issuing just two walks. Ehn needed only 58 pitches to get through the Wildcat lineup, throwing 42 of them for strikes.

Miller cited the past coaching of one of his mentors, former Fort Dodge Senior High leader Matt Elsbecker, with the pace of Ehn’s effort.

“It might be an Elsbecker thing, but we preach seven seconds in between pitches,” he said. “That makes your defense want to play. When it gets to 10, 15 seconds, it feels like a rain delay, but Thomas got out there and competed.

“We were warming someone up there late and people might be confused by that, but with the pitch count rules, that’s part of this now. With him going out there and pounding the strike zone like he did, that was absolutely clutch for us in terms of the bigger picture.”

After two scoreless innings to start, St. Edmond’s offense got rolling, batting through the lineup while scoring six runs in the third. Senior Jack McElroy delivered a two-RBI single, as freshmen Blake Bartlett and Garrett Royster each had RBI hits.

Bartlett with a triple and drove in two runs, as senior Grant Galles had two RBI and stole two bases. Classmate Kinnick Henning finished 3-for-3 with two runs scored.

Sophomore Coltin Fevold added an RBI, senior Carson Bargfrede added a run scored and a hit, Royster scored twice and McElroy crossed home once.

“Our schedule has a certain level of pitching to it, and sometimes, it’s harder to go back to that when you haven’t seen slower off-speed in a while,” Miller said. “But once we adjusted, we really had two great innings with a lot of great approaches at the plate.

“Even a couple of our hits were hard-hit balls that they just made good plays on.”

Glidden-Ralston had just four runners reach base, with only one getting into scoring position. Ehn picked up two strikeouts in both the first and second innings, recording the final two outs of the game on his fifth strikeout and a grounder back to him.

St. Edmond vs. AGWSR will begin at 7 p.m. The other two District 6 games were postponed due to weather until Monday, as Ankeny Christian faces Mormon Trail and Collins-Maxwell meets Madrid. The district final is scheduled for Saturday, July 11.

ST. EDMOND 10, GLIDDEN-RALSTON 0 (5 inn.)

Glidden-Ralston 000 00 – 0 1 2

St. Edmond 006 4x – 10 8 0

WP-Thomas Ehn (4-2, 5 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 6 K, 2 BB). LP-Jackson Whitaker (4 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 2 K, 1 BB).

3B-SE: Blake Bartlett. RBI-SE: Grant Galles (2), Blake Bartlett, Coltin Fevold, Jack McElroy (2), Garrett Royster. SB-SE: Garrett Royster, Kinnick Henning, Carson Bargfrede, Grant Galles, Jack McElroy.