After bursting onto the Nebraska high school baseball scene with a state-leading 112 strikeouts as a sophomore, big things were expected from  Nebraska City lefthander Logan Ehlers this season.  But, throwing a perfect seven-inning ballgame with fifteen strikeouts against a quality Lincoln Pius team  in the Pioneers' season opener probably surpasses what anyone expected of the young man, especially considering that he is just coming off  a long basketball season.  Nevertheless, that's exactly what the junior southpaw did Friday evening at Densmore Park in Lincoln as the Pioneers recorded a 1-0 win over the Thunderbolts. 

The young hurler faced the minimum of 21 batters, and threw just 74 pitches in seven innings.  Only six balls were put in play by the 'Bolts, and none of those left the infield.  All six were ground balls, and two were come-backers to the mound that Ehlers fielded and tossed to first. 

As it turns out, the Pioneers needed an exceptional pitching performance from their ace in order to get the win as the Thunderbolts' Alex Heideman allowed only two hits by the Pioneers in a stellar pitching performance of his own.  The senior righthander struck out seven and gave up only two walks in six innings.  Nebraska City's Greg Denniston scored the only run in the game following a lead-off double in the top of the 5th.  

"It was a great pitching performance by both young men!" commented Nebraska City head coach Tom Bales.  "Heideman did a good job of keeping us off balance and moving the ball around. Logan was able to make it through seven innings on only 74 pitches, which is good, because he was only getting 75-80 pitches. He did a great job of keeping the ball down.  I don't think he had a pitch hit the dirt. He was on!" 

Papillion LaVista's Colby McCord threw a five-inning perfect game in 2007, and his current UNO teammate, Paul Hansen, also achieved five-inning perfection for Columbus.  But, to find out the last time that a Nebraska pitcher threw a perfect seven-inning game, we will need a little help from our readers.

Congratulations to Logan and his teammates on an outstanding accomplishment!

Here's what a scorebook looks like for a perfect game.