By Scott Vanscoy (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The Strafford Indians hosted the Stockton Tigers in a battle between two of the top teams in the Mid-Lakes Conference. The host Indians won 9-8 in what was expected to be a low scoring game. With starters Jacob Wheeler for Stockton and Tony Caldwell for Strafford, one would think a pitching duel would take place. Instead, it was a back and forth contest in which neither starter lasted into the fifth inning.
Caldwell held Stockton hitless until the fourth inning while his team scored five runs in the bottom of the second. In the second inning, Wheeler saw his team make three defensive errors, giving up five runs, four of which were unearned. After two, the score stood at 5-0 and Wheeler was off the mound.
“I kind of got behind in the counts a lot, I still need to work on getting ahead early and keeping my pitch count down,” said Caldwell. “We always have a lot of fight in us, we never think it’s over. We are never out of a baseball game. As a team, when we get up on a team we need to keep adding on runs instead of settling down—we need to bury teams.”
Stockton scored a lone run in the third inning off of no hits, a walk, a sacrifice, and a ground out to make the score 5-1. The fourth inning went without any runs scored and things appeared to be going Strafford’s way.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
In the fifth inning, Caldwell started to lose his control, walking the bases loaded. Stockton was quick to take advantage, scoring six runs off of just three hits, giving the Tigers a 7-5 lead.
“Tony, the last couple of outings, has done a good job,” said Strafford coach Shane Pierce. “I think he had one hit through four innings and did a good job. He struggled there in the fifth, getting a little tired, and sometimes he’s affected by things other than what he can control. That’s something he’ll mature through.”
“It was a back and forth, not what I was expecting with the two pitchers we had on the mound,” said Stockton coach Darin Henderson. “I wasn’t expecting a 9-8 game; I was expecting it to be close but not that score. Both teams had a good approach at the plate and hit the ball well. When we got down, we didn’t give up and that’s huge for us. We hadn’t been in that situation this year; this group’s been there but not this year. To see this team compete and want it, want to fight, and we weren’t hitting double and triples, we were just being scrappy. Our fielding was a little shoddy early on. We usually don’t have that problem but that’s been an issue for us lately and we are going to have to get better at that. Strafford is good on defense, they make a lot of balls that are close to being hits turn into outs.”
Strafford was not one to panic as they scored two runs of their own in the fifth inning, taking advantage of four walks and just one hit.
“No panic; we try to talk a lot about not panicking when you’re in that situation, just got to stay calm,” said Pierce. “Baseball is sometimes a game of ups and downs and you get too up or too down it can come back and get you. We kind of learned that last year in the District championship game, down five runs late with two outs and then found a way, so I think it’s just important that there’s no panic there.”
Key RBIs from Dillon Turner and Wyatt Maples gave Strafford a two-run lead in the bottom of the sixth, 9-7. Stockton would not go down without a fight. The Tigers got their lead-off hitter, Clayton Hubbard, to draw a walk. He came around to score on an RBI single by Garrett Haden but Stockton had a runner thrown out at third in a close play. Stockton’s final out came on a line drive to second, ending the game 9-8 in favor of the Indians.
“Mason Fuller does a good job closing games for us,” said Pierce. “We brought him in the other night against Catholic and he kind of closed the door on that one. Tonight he did the same thing, he struggled with a couple of hitters, guy got a little hit, but he didn’t panic. He just kept working hard and got it to pop up. Stockton competes hard, they’re a good baseball team and Coach Henderson does a good job and they always compete. I knew this would be a good test for our kids, I wanted to sit back and see what they did, and they fought hard.”
Stockton 8, Strafford 9
Stockton 001 060 1 — 8
Strafford 050 022 X — 9
