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By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
SPRINGFIELD — As soon as Danny White recorded the final out of Springfield Catholic’s 7-4 victory over Logan-Rogersville on Thursday afternoon, the sophomore pitcher leapt off the mound, pumped his arm in celebration and was mobbed by his teammates on the infield grass.
He had not only saved the game, but perhaps the Fighting Irish’s chances at a conference title.
Missouri State signee Jeremy Rader struck out eight in five effective innings, Caiden Davis broke the game open by driving in three key runs and White recorded the final six outs to seal the win as Springfield Catholic kept pace with the Wildcats in a pivotal Big 8 East showdown.
The conference title wasn’t officially on the line, but a Logan-Rogersville victory would have given the Wildcats a two-game lead over the Fighting Irish in the Big 8 East standings — with little chance to make up the ground. But Springfield Catholic drew five first-inning walks for an early advantage and tagged the bullpen for four runs to snap the Wildcats’ 10-game win streak.
“We probably didn’t play our cleanest game that we would love to play, but we did enough good things to put ourselves in position to score runs,” Fighting Irish coach Courtney Spitz said.
“Their pitcher was struggling to throw strikes and our guys were doing a good job of staying patient and battling inside the strike zone. We did what we had to do to get some runs early and we made enough plays to hold on to the lead.”
The win also closed out a daunting stretch of three conference games against state-ranked foes, as Big 8 East schools currently occupy four of the top eight spots in the Class 4 rankings.
No. 2 Catholic (15-2, 2-1) beat No. 4 Aurora last week, fell to No. 8 Hollister on Monday and rebounded to hand the No. 6 Wildcats (13-4, 3-1) their first conference loss of the year, keeping the race for the conference championship wide open heading into the final weeks of the season.
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“This conference is loaded with great coaches and great baseball players and you’re starting to see it with Logan-Rogersville and Springfield Catholic and Hollister and Marshfield and Aurora. All those schools are just night-in, night-out putting out good baseball games and continuing to succeed,” Spitz said. “This conference is one of the toughest — and our districts are usually pretty tough, too. Everybody has a chance to beat anybody night-in, night-out. That’s what makes it so much fun, playing against all those good teams.”
The pitching matchup was a battle between future Missouri State Bears, as Rader went head-to-head with sophomore verbal commit Curry Sutherland. Sutherland got the early hand with an RBI single in the top of the first, but Rader needed just 11 pitches to retire the side and minimize the damage.
Sutherland labored through his first inning, walking five batters and throwing four wild pitches in a 44-pitch frame that ended with Catholic ahead 2-1 without recording a hit.
“He wasn’t missing by much, but they did a good job of settling in on his zone and taking pitches when they needed to,” Wildcats coach Casey Ledl said. “We just didn’t execute pitches when we had to.”
Cole Leonhart stretched Catholic’s lead to 3-1 with a sacrifice fly in the second inning, but the Wildcats tied it on RBI singles from Clay Palen (third inning) and Tanner Petersen (fourth).
Petersen’s came after the Irish booted a slow-rolling ground ball that would have been the third out of the inning, but instead spurred a two-out rally that wiped out Catholic’s early advantage.
“We knew we had to come back and get a run,” Davis said. “We know that we have to be ahead and if we’re not going to be assertive, then it’s going to be hard for us to win the game.”
With Sutherland approaching his pitch count limit, freshman Ross Lawrence took over pitching duties in the bottom of the fourth and the Fighting Irish offense surged for three runs.
After a strikeout to open the inning, Leonhart walked, Rader singled and Davis brought them both home with a bloop single to shallow right that put Catholic back on top for good.
Colin Davis added an RBI single later in the inning, giving the Irish a 6-3 lead that held until Sutherland drove in his second run of the game with a sacrifice fly off White in the sixth.
But Caiden Davis restored Catholic’s three-run lead with his fifth home run of the season in the bottom half of the inning, a solo shot to left field that capped his 2-for-4 afternoon.
“He’s been excellent,” Spitz said. “He continues to hit the ball hard and capitalize on pitches that he can drive. We talk about it all the time. Put the ball in play. Find a way to hit the baseball. When we do that, we’re a tough club to beat.”
The Wildcats rallied to bring the tying run to the plate in the seventh, but White was unnerved and got Petersen swinging to close out the win. It was the second strong showing in a week for the Kickapoo transfer, who carried a no-hitter into the fourth last Thursday against Aurora.
“He’s got good stuff,” Spitz said. “He loves that moment. He wants to be in that moment and that’s why we go to him. He continues to shine for us on the mound as an option to start or to close and I couldn’t be more happy with his performance.”
The rivalry game also carried some potential significance in the Class 4 District 10 playoff bracket, as it may be the difference between a semifinal date with Ava, another team getting votes in the state rankings..
But for two teams with title hopes, the focus after the game was less about who they’ll play in the tournament’s earlier rounds. To win the district and reach the state tournament, there’s a good chance they will need to beat the team they played Thursday — whenever that may be.
“We knew we’ll see this team again later on in the season in another tough district game,” Spitz said. “You want to get the win. You want to put yourself in the driver’s seat, whether it’s a conference game or a district game, you always want to go out and put your best out there and succeed. We did talk about it, but at the end of the day it’s just one game and we know that Rogersville knows that. They will bounce back and we will see them again for another tough matchup later in the season.”
Long before that, though, the conference champion will be determined. And thanks to Thursday afternoon’s result, the final weeks of the regular season will be even more important.
“It’s still mid-April,” Ledl added. “It’s still 47 degrees at game time. It’s one of those deals where sure, you want to win, you’re disappointed that you lost, but there are another four weeks of baseball left before we get to the postseason. It’s about both teams building towards that.”
