PELLA  — Suffering its worst loss of the season to close out the weekend series against Coe College, the Central College baseball team took a 16-0 defeat in seven innings Saturday afternoon.

Coe (13-4, 3-1 American Rivers Conference) scored seven in the fourth and eight in the sixth inning to win handily against Central (10-9, 2-4 conference). The Dutch used seven different pitchers, who totaled nine walks and four hit batsmen in addition to 14 hits allowed.

Starting pitcher Max Steinlage (junior, Cedar Falls) took the loss for Central, giving up five earned runs in 3.0 innings on the mound. The Kohawks only had four hits against him but he yielded five walks and hit three batters.

"It's hard to compete in a game when you're not getting ahead and playing against a team that takes advantage of mistakes," coach Adam Carey said. "All credit to Coe, but at the same time we have to better job executing."

Central's two hits were a Dom DeLaPaz (senior, catcher, Davenport, West HS) double and a Chance Dreyer (junior, second baseman Davenport, Assumption HS) single.

"It was hard to establish what their pitcher's sequencing was going to look like," Carey said. "He did a good job keeping us on our toes all day. We've got to do a better job adjusting to it."

DeLaPaz flashed his arm talent behind the plate by catching two runners trying to steal second base.

"It was awesome to see him make those great throws," Carey said.

Central returns to its home field Tuesday for a 3 p.m. contest against Buena Vista University.

"We need to push back into our identity," Carey said. "Who we were all offseason and who we were the first 15 games of the season. We did not play a great series, and we need to understand what mistakes we made and what we can learn from it, and then just keep improving from there."