The De Soto High baseball team won its first three games of the season, and everyone who wore the green and white played their part.
All three Dragon victories were on the road, the first being 12-5 at Arcadia Valley on March 19. Connor Heister was given the ball to take the mound on opening day. Heister struck out seven in 3 1/3 innings to get the win, and he was capably relieved by Shayne Scurlock and Will Weber. Scurlock pitched around six hits in 2 1/3 without allowing a run. At the plate, De Soto pounded out 12 hits, drew nine walks and stole four bases. Heister helped himself with three hits and three RBIs. Blake Coleman was a home run away from hitting for the cycle and scored three runs.
“We came out hot with the bats,” De Soto head coach Kyle Huey said. “Great start by Connor and that success carried into Saturday (March 21) against Fox and Fatima.”
Those two games were played at Festus High as part of the Tigers’ tournament. The Dragons beat the Warriors 7-3 and the Comets 5-3.
De Soto scored all seven runs against Fox in the second inning. Still not on the mound – we’ll get back to that in a minute – Coleman again was a pest offensively with a run, RBI, stolen base and two walks. In a game curtailed by the time limit, Nate Christopher pitched all five innings for the Dragons, allowing four hits and five walks.
De Soto trailed Fatima 3-0 until senior catcher Levi McCullough smacked a solo home run that precipitated five unanswered runs. Like Heister, Christopher aided his own cause with a double and two RBIs.
“That success we’ve had has been based around throwing strikes, putting the ball in play and solid defense,” Huey said.
Austin Milton started on the mound against Fatima, scattering six hits in 4 1/3. Milton was relieved by Weber, who left the mound with two Comets on base and no outs in the seventh. Fatima had the go-ahead run at the plate, and at this point after three games, Huey had used five pitchers and Weber twice. But not Coleman.
When I thought about Huey’s next move, I could hear Kenny Rogers singing, “The Gambler” and the lyrics,
“There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealing’s done”
Coleman didn’t pitch in the jamboree and almost 18 innings into the new season before Huey pulled the ace from his sleeve and like in Rogers’ famous song,
“And in his final words
I found an ace that I could keep”
Coleman struck out the side to reannounce his presence as one of the top pitchers in the JCAA and in Class 5. There will be plenty of full-house showdowns to come in conference meetings before the senior heads off to pitch at Southeast Missouri State University.
“Blake wasn’t scheduled to throw against Fatima,” Huey said. “He told me in the third inning, ‘Coach, if we have the lead in the seventh inning, I want the ball.’ I was like, OK. I needed to bridge the gap and Will was dealing. We’ve been easing (Coleman) into the season. We have six or seven guys who throw strikes and give us the opportunity to win at any time and that was proven this weekend.”
In the course of talking to Huey about his team’s fast start, he threw me some Sabermetrics right out of the movie “Moneyball.”
“Eighty-five percent of times (Christopher) threw a first-pitch strike, he got an out. Kids are all about the numbers. We want the kids to get away from other numbers that justify what we’re talking about. One of the things we talked about last year was quality at-bat percentages. Once the kids bought into that, they were asking questions and they got more excited about it.”
Festus charged out of the gates in its first two games, looking very much like the five-time district champions they are. The Tigers crushed Fox 16-1 March 20 and Fatima 14-0 the next day. Tiger hitters smashed 23 hits in the two games, and pitchers Jackson ljames, Cale Schaumburg, Jackson Smith and Ryan Vernon combined for 14 strikeouts and five hits allowed. Smith is batting .600 with a team-high six RBIs.
St. Pius X lost its season-opener 4-3 at Cape Girardeau Central on March 19. The Lancers committed three errors, which led to three runs. Benj Smith pitched 5 innings, allowed one hit and struck out 6, and didn’t allow an earned run. Kam Lebon threw 1 1/3 innings, allowing one earned run. At the plate, Cooper Horvath, Benj Smith and Noah Smith and Sam Patterson each had one hit.
St. Pius is at Bayless today (March 26). The Lancers are at Gibault on Saturday and at Busch Stadium on Sunday against Greenville (Ill.).
Hillsboro split a doubleheader in Ste. Genevieve on March 20, clubbing the Dragons 15-0, and falling 7-6 to Valle Catholic.
In the win over Ste. Gen, junior Max Partney hit three home runs (one was a grand slam) and drove in eight runs. Pitcher Hunter Grewe completed all four innings in the shutout.
In the loss to the Warriors, Hillsboro led 4-0 in the third, but Valle snapped back with six runs in the fourth. In his first start on the mound this season, Hillsboro senior Jackson Marks gave up seven hits, and one of the seven runs he surrendered was earned.