Pitch after pitch the anticipation began to build for Lake Mills junior pitcher Drey LyBarger.

Through 4 innings, LyBarger held Garner-Hayfield hitless until the top of the fifth when the Cardinal’s Nathan Hrubes smacked a single just out of the reach of third baseman Royce Byrnes to end the no hit bid, as the Bulldogs defeated Garner-Hayfield 4-0 in a North Iowa conference game on Friday in Lake Mills.

“It’s a win,” said Lake Mills coach Jason Blaser. “Like I told the guys after the game, it’s good to win a ball game. But its a team we should have been able to score 10 or 15 runs against.”

With LyBarger’s pitching performance, the Bulldogs didn’t need to count on their offense as much as in past games.

Lake Mills struggled at the plate but took advantage of Garner-Hayfield pitcher Damon Quandt’s control problems in the second inning.

Drey LyBarger and Chris Throne both drew walks to score runs in a three run second inning, while Taylor Throne scored an RBI ground-out that provided more than enough runs for a 4-0 lead.

“We were fortunate they missed the strike zone a couple of times,” Blaser said. “We like to be aggressive early in the game and that helped us a lot.”

While the Bulldogs cruised through most of the game, they ran into trouble in the top of the seventh inning.

LyBarger started the inning getting a ground-out before walking three Garner-Hayfield batters in a row to load the bases with one out.

Lake Mills then brought in senior Chris Throne as he pitched the final 2/3 of an inning to preserve the win for the Bulldogs.

LyBarger earned the win as he went 6 1/3 innings and struck out eight.

“Well I tried to mix it up a little bit,” said LyBarger, of his pitching approach. “My change up was pretty good tonight, we got some easy pop ups and a couple strikeouts with that.”

Lake Mills is in action on Saturday at Northwood and play Forest City in a North Iowa conference doubleheader on Monday in Lake Mills.

Lake Mills 4, Garner-Hayfield 0

Garner-Hayfield 000 000 0 — 0 1 1

Lake Mills 130 000 0 — 4 5 1

WP— Drey LyBarger 6 1/3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 8 BB, 8 K

LP— Damon Quandt 6 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 5 BB, 1 K