IOWA CITY - Cedar Rapids Kennedy junior Cody Bell acknowledges that he sometimes has a problem with stepping in the bucket when he's at the plate.

In the second game of a doubleheader against Iowa City High on Wednesday night, Bell put that problem to rest.

Belting a home run and two doubles, Bell collected six RBIs and helped No.5 Kennedy take care of City High in five innings, 13-0, at Mercer Park.

City High won the opener, 6-5.

These games had substate implications. By gaining a split, Kennedy (23-7, 16-4) clinched the No.1 seed in Substate 3 when Xavier split its doubleheader with Dubuque Hempstead Wednesday.

Bell got his team on the board in the third inning of the nightcap when he launched an 0-2 pitch just fair over the left field wall.

“I closed my stance a little more and I was able to see the ball a lot better and was able to turn on it,” Bell said. “I was stepping a little more towards the pitcher instead of stepping out. I just got a couple pitches I could handle.”

Bell and his teammates sprayed the ball all over the field, smacking 17 hits in the five-inning game. The Cougars had seven consecutive hits in the fourth inning and scored five runs. Griffin Michael and Terrell Sykes each had three hits and every Cougar starter had at least one hit in Game 2.

“We have been scoring a lot of runs and hitting the ball well lately,” Kennedy Coach Bret Hoyer said. “We have scored 81 runs in our last eight games.”

Along with the Cougars' dominance at the plate in the nightcap, pitcher Alex Hayden gave up only three hits and held the Little Hawks scoreless in five innings. He struck out seven batters.

“We are trying to figure out who our third and fourth starters are and Hayden just made a good case for himself,” Hoyer said. “Alex was really good tonight.”

In the opener, City High (17-12, 10-10) prevailed on a walk-off RBI single by Josh Crosby in the bottom of the seventh. The Little Hawks outhit the Cougars, 11-5, and Hoyer attributed that to City High pitcher Connor Alberhasky.

“He is one of the best pitchers in the state, he made things really tough on us,” Hoyer said.

The Cougars left something to be desired in the field as well.

“We had six mistakes on defense in the first game and when somebody the caliber of Alberhasky is pitching against you, you can't afford to make that many mistakes,” Hoyer said.

The opener did not bring a win for Kennedy, but it did bring some history. Kennedy slugger Austin Christensen hit a two-run home run in the fifth inning, his 15th of the season to set a single-season record for the Cougars. Adam Rice hit 14 homers in 2006.

“That is a record I wasn’t sure was going to get broken. But it ended up not standing for very long at all,” Hoyer said.

Christensen went 2-for-6 in the twinbill and is hitting .580 (51 for 88) for the season, with 15 home runs and 43 RBIs.

Kennedy hosts Dubuque Wahlert on Friday for a doubleheader with big MVC Mississippi Division implications. Wahlert swept Washington Wednesday and holds a one-game lead over Kennedy with six to play.

Game 1

KENNEDY (5)
Sykes, 2b, 2 2 0 0, Christensen, rf, 2 2 1 2, Michael, ss, 4 0 0 0, Yancey, 4 1 1 0, Bell, 1b, 3 0 1 1, Maiers, c, 3 0 0 0, Jacobus, 3b, 3 0 2 1, Ambrosy, cf, 3 0 0 0, Benson, dh, 3 0 0 0, Appleget, p, 0 0 0 0. Totals 31 5 5 4.

CITY HIGH (6)
Hamm, 3b, 4 1 1 0, Duncan, cf, 4 0 0 0, Prybil, 1b, 3 2 2 1, Alberhasky, p, 3 1 2 0, Crosby, dh, 4 2 3 2, Mrstik, ss, 3 0 0 0, Wieland, 2b, 3 0 2 1, Hartley, lf, 3 0 0 1, Winegarden, rf, 3 0 1 1, Stika, c, 0 0 0 0. Totals 32 6 11 6.

Kennedy    200 021 0 - 5 5 3
City High  113 000 1 - 6 11 1

Appleget, Yancey (7) and Maiers. Alberhasky and Stika. W – Alberhasky  L – Yancey. 2B - Prybil. HR - Christensen. SB - Sykes, Yancey.

Game 2

KENNEDY (13)
Sykes, 2b, 4 3 3 2, Christensen, rf, 4 1 1 1, Michael, ss, 4 2 3 1, Yancey, lf, 3 3 1 1, Bell, 1b, 4 1 3 6, Jacobus, 3b, 4 0 2 0, Lizarraga, c, 4 0 1 0, Jahlas, cf, 4 1 1 0, Benson, dh, 3 2 2 0, Hayden, p, 0 0 0 0. Totals 35 13 17 11.

CITY HIGH (0)
Hamm, c, 3 0 0 0, Crosby, dh, 2 0 1 0, Prybil, 1b, 2 0 0 0, Alberhasky, ss, 2 0 0 0, Duncan, cf, 2 0 0 0, Mrstik, 3b, 2 0 1 0, Wieland, 2b, 2 0 0 0, Simpson, rf, 2 0 1 0, Stika, lf, 2 0 0 0. Totals 19 0 3 0.

Kennedy    004 54 - 13 17 0
City High    000 00 - 0 3 2

Hayden and Lizarraga. Hartley, Simpson (5) and Hamm. W – Hayden. L – Hartley. 2B - Michael, Yancey, Bell 2. 3B - Sykes. HR - Bell. SB- Sykes 3, Yancey, Benson.