BASEBALL: Indians edge Sparta in eight innings
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[DuQuoin Baseball traveled to Sparta on Wednesday for a conference contest. The Indians were fortunate to come out the winner beating Sparta 7-6. DuQuoin's record is now 10-12 overall and 3-6 in the conference. DuQuoin has one more conference game left with Anna-Jonesboro on Friday.
DuQuoin took the lead early scoring three runs in the first inning. DuQuoin also scored two in the sixth, one in the seventh, and one (the winning run) in the eighth inning. Travis Chapman drove in the winning run in the eighth inning. Sparta tied the game at 3 in the second inning, went ahead scoring one in the fourth, two more in the seventh to tie the game again at 6 each.
Coach Tim Craft described an interesting and somewhat bizarre play in the seventh that allowed Sparta to tie the game. DuQuoin was winning 6-4. There were two outs when a Sparta player hit a routine ground ball to J.C. Davis at shortstop. Davis fired the ball to Connor Wheeler at first base. Wheeler knew he had caught the ball for the third out and headed off the field.
Unfortunately, the ball had demolished the webbing in his glove and flew into foul territory. This bizarre mishap allowed Sparta to score two runs in the inning and tie the game at six each. How would one score that? It certainly wasn't a 6-3 routine ground ball and neither player committed an error. Coach Craft admitted he had never seen anything like that before. DuQuoin then had to go into the eighth inning to get the win.
DuQuoin had 9 hits in the game. Davis was 2-3 with 2 RBI. Brandon George was 3-4 with an RBI. Wheeler was 2-4 with 2 RBI. Seth Baxter was 1-3, and Chapman was 1-4 with an RBI.
Wheeler was the starting pitcher going three innings. He allowed 7 hits on 4 runs (3 earned), had two walks and two strikeouts. The winning pitcher was Kegan Robbins who came in to relieve in the fourth inning going 5 innings. Robbins allowed 3 hits, 2 runs (earned), had 1 walk, and 2 strikeouts.
Coach Craft thought, "we did a good job fighting back in this game. We jumped out to an early lead and fell behind. We had some good at bats, and came through when we needed to."
DuQuoin travels to Vienna on Thursday and then to Anna-Jonesboro on Friday. DuQuoin (#3) starts regional play on Monday against Waltonville (#6) at home (4:30).