Wednesday's Prep Baseball: Panthers finally solve Seneca
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After a rocky beginning to the 2010 campaign, Pinckneyville Community High School's baseball team put together its best effort of the early season Wednesday.
The Panthers, 2-5, dispatched of Seneca 9-5 at the Perry County Fairgrounds' Rigdon Field, ending a two-year loss skid against the Fightin' Irish from the far south Chicagoland suburbs.
Seneca is also 2-5.
"It was nice to come out and beat a pitcher who had beaten us the last couple of years," PCHS coach Alan Engelhardt said. " We had, by far, our best at-bats of the year today. Even when we got out, we took some good aggressive cuts and, for the most part, avoided the strikeout."
Pinckneyville scored six times in the second inning to break things open early, providing plenty of cushion for sophomore lefty C.J. Opp (1-1). He pitched six shutout innings with six strikeouts. Opp gave six hits.
"C.J. was great on the mound today, working ahead of hitters, hitting his spots, and challenging when he needed to," said Engelhardt. " It was good to see him have a bounce-back game on the mound and start to pitch how he is capable of pitching. If he hadn't hit his pitch limit for today, he was in a great position to throw a complete game for us."
Michael Rakers led a 13-hit attack with three hits. Drew Dudek, Landon Chandler, Matthew Nichols and Bryant Shute all recording two hits.
Christian Shopinski, Bryant Shute and Adam Barczweski poked RBI hits.
Dudek and Jeff Thornton had home runs.
"Hopefully we can use this as a break-out game for a few of our guys," Engelhardt concluded.
At 4:30 Thursday, Pinckneyville hosts Steeleville before breaking for the Easter holiday weekend.
PCHS 9, Seneca 5
Seneca 000 000 5-5 9 1
PCHS 151 110 x-9 13 1
Higgins, Adkins (2), Polcy (4) and Bergson. Opp, Rakers (7), Beninati (7) and Barczewski. WP-Opp, 1-1. LP-Higgins. TOP HITTERS-PCHS: Dudek 2-3, Chandler 2-4, Rakers 3-4, Nichols 2-4, Shute 2-3, Barczewski 1-3, Thornton 1-2.