BASEBALL: George, Indians shut out Wildcats
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Prior to the beginning of the DuQuoin's home finale on Tuesday vs. Anna-Jonesboro, the Indians' seniors were honored. All nine seniors made an appearance in the game and DHS beat A-J by a score of 7-0 for their fourth straight victory.
DuQuoin did not score until the fourth inning. DuQuoin put three runs on the board in the fourth and three more in the fifth inning on Seth Baxter's round-tripper. In the sixth inning, they scored another one. DuQuoin's overall record is 9-12 and 2-6 in the Conference.
DuQuoin tallied nine hits in the game. J.C. Davis was 1-3. Kegan Robbins was 1-3. Trent Bigham was 3-4 including a double and an RBI. Connor Wheeler was 2-4. Seth Baxter had a good day at the plate going 2-3 including a three-run home run and 4 RBI.
The winning pitcher for DuQuoin was Brandon George. George pitched all seven innings allowing no runs, on 4 hits, had one walk, two hit batters, and 7 strikeouts. Coach Tim Craft thought George pitched very well. "Once again we got a good pitching performance out of Brandon George."
DuQuoin's pitching appears to be heating up at the right time of the season. George's astonishing numbers in his last five appearances include three wins and two hard-luck losses over 29 innings pitched, a mere 12 hits and 7 walks allowed and 39 strikeouts.
In addition to George, Bigham is also turning it up as the Indians approach the IHSA Regional next week. In his last two appearances on the mound, the hurler is 2-0 in 13 innings pitched and has allowed just one earned run, five hits and 8 walks over that stretch to go along with 17 strikeouts.
Over the last 26 innings thrown by either George or Bigham, the Indians have surrendered only one earned run.
Craft continued, "I think we are starting to see things come together as a team. We struggled early in the season, but hopefully we have learned from our mistakes, and have become a better team for it. Seth Baxter had two huge hits for us today. The home run broke the game open in the fifth inning. It was a good win for the seniors."
The senior players are: Seth Baxter, J.C. Davis, Connor Wheeler, Trent Bigham, Sam Kuhnert, Cory Campanella, Jacob Stanhouse, Drew Bennett, and Brandon George.
DuQuoin travels to Sparta on Wednesday, to Vienna on Thursday, and to Anna-Jonesboro on Friday. Sparta and Anna-Jonesboro are conference games.
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Doug Daniels of the Du Quoin Evening Call also contributed to this story.