By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The Logan-Rogersville baseball team continued checking off its preseason to-do list on Monday at McDonald County.
With the Big 8 East crown already won, the Wildcats scored in four different innings and Curry Sutherland turned in a solid start as the team won 6-2 against the Big 8 West champion Mustangs in the conference crossover game.
“That’s one of their goals they set at the beginning of the year, to win our side of the conference and to win the matchup game and be conference champs and the whole nine yards so obviously that was a goal we accomplished,” Rogersville coach Casey Ledl said. “We’re two-for-two in goals accomplished but we know what we’ve got coming next week and that’s obviously another goal.”
The Wildcats only trailed briefly in Anderson after scoring the first run of the game. A bloop single with the bases loaded gave McDonald County (13-12) a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the third, but four Rogersville doubles in the next two innings helped put it away.
Gavin Nally doubled to left on the first pitch of the fourth inning and scored when Noah Carrow followed with a double over the right fielder. That tied it, and after Colin Archer moved the runner over with a bunt, Taner Peterson sacrificed to center to make it 3-2.
Hunter Lewis doubled to center with two outs in the fifth inning and Drew Cornelison then lined a double down the right field line to make it 4-2.
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“We’ve been swinging it really well for the last several weeks on this winning streak we’ve had,” Ledl said. “I think we’ve lost one game our last 15 or 16 games, something like that. We’ve had good pitching. When we don’t walk people we’re pretty good. Our kids hit it well enough that they’re going to be able to put five or six runs on the board most of the time. If we don’t walk people and play pretty good defense behind them we feel pretty good just about every night we go out there to play.”
The Wildcats improved to 21-4 with the win and have actually won 18 of 19, including eight in a row. And they did it despite allowing six walks and a hit batter in the game.
Sutherland issued five walks but allowed just one hit over 4.2 innings – the bloop single – and struck out six. He threw 95 pitches. Blythe Blakey pitched the final 2.1 innings and scattered two hits while walking one and striking out one.
And the offense wasn’t done after the fourth and fifth innings, either.
Nally and Carrow drew walks to lead off the sixth and Archer put two runners in scoring position with another sacrifice bunt. Clay Palen scored both with a line-drive single to right.
The Wildcats also had a chance for more in the first inning, when a walk and two singles loaded the bases with nobody out. Sutherland grounded into a fielder’s choice to score one run but then a double play ended the inning.
“Offensively you tip your cap to Logan-Rogersville, they did a really good job finding the barrel and hitting with two strikes and honestly when you go back and look at it we probably didn’t,” McDonald County coach Kevin Burgi said. “We got kind of what we expected out of Weston (Gordon), he did a good job. We felt good giving the ball to Rylee (Boyd) and they did a good job making him throw strikes and finding barrel when they had runners in scoring position.”
Gordon pitched 4.2 innings and allowed eight hits and four runs while striking out four. Boyd allowed two hits and two runs in 2.1 innings with a pair of strikeouts. The two combined to issue five walks.
The Mustangs had runners in scoring position in four different innings but were left searching for a hit in three of them. Cross Dowd walked and stole second in the first, Cole Martin walked and stole second in the fifth and Isac Behm walked and advanced on an error in the sixth.
Only in the third, though, did McDonald County get a runner to third and beyond. A fielder’s choice by Wade Rickman, a walk by Martin and a walk by Levi Helm loaded the bases with two outs for Gordon, who singled in two runs and advanced to second on the throw.
“We scored the way we thought we were going to have to,” Burgi said. “We knew we’d have to grind through some at bats and find a way to run the bags. Obviously Weston came through with a big hit there and then before you know it Logan-Rogersville finds more barrel and we’re back down. That’s a sign of a good team.”
Palen, Blakey and Lewis each recorded two hits for the visitors; Palen drove in two runs and Thomas Baxter scored twice. Rogersville left eight runners on base.
Helm, Gordon and Wade Rickman recorded singles for McDonald County; Gordon drove in two and Martin and Rickman scored runs. The Mustangs also stranded eight.
