Monday's SIRR baseball: Panthers fall into second place tie with Tribe
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Nashville and Anna-Jonesboro share first place in the River-to-River Conference's Mississippi Division baseball team standings following Monday's action.
Each squad sports 5-2 records as league play enters its final full week of play.
Nashville roughed up three different Pinckneyville pitchers for 15 hits in a 15-7 win Monday while Anna-Jonesboro dispatched of Sparta 8-2.
Tuesday at 4;30, Pinckneyville (10-9, 4-3) visits Du Quoin (12-7, 4-3).
"We had a rough outing on the mound today, giving up 15 hits and 8 walks," Panthers coach Alan Engelhardt said. "We were just outplayed in basically every facet of the game. To give Nashville credit, they really adjusted to what we were trying to do on the mound and were willing to hit the ball the other way."
Nashville built an early 5-2 lead and stretched that margin to 8-2 in the sixth inning.
PCHS sliced that margin in half by the top of the seventh before the visiting Hornets plated seven runs in their half of the frame.
Pinckneyville was held to just five hits by Nashville's Kyle Heggermeier. Matthew Nichols (2-for-4) was the lone Panther to collect more than one safety. Nichols, Michael Rakers and Adam Barczewski all smacked home runs for Pinckneyville with Rakers' shot a three-run blast.
"All of the guys who had success for us today were willing to use the whole field rather than trying to just yank the ball," said Engelhardt. "We need to find our rhythm again and start to make some adjustments, not just do our own thing, if we are going to end this little slide. We are in a rough spot now in the conference race as we will have to take care of our own business and we need help from a couple of teams just to have a chance to share the title at the end of the race."
C.J. Opp (4-3) suffered the mound loss for Pinckneyville.