BASEBALL: Indians move on with shutout of Waltonville
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The DuQuoin Indians baseball team began Regional play on Monday evening taking on Waltonville-Sesser-Valier at home. The Indians demolished W-S-V in five innings with a 12-0 score.
This win takes the Indians above the .500 mark at a 13-12 record. The past few weeks the Indians have been playing their best baseball of the season, and have been on a hot streak, winning eight straight games including Monday's triumph.
The Indians started off well scoring four runs in the first inning. Two more runs were added in the third, and finally in the fourth inning DuQuoin scored six. W-S-V only had one hit in the contest. Levi Laird got a base hit in the second inning.
DuQuoin tallied 12 hits in the contest. J.C. Davis was 2-4. Kegan Robbins was 1-2 with an RBI. Brandon George was 2-3. Drew Bennett was 1-3. Trent Bigham was 2-3 with an RBI. Connor Wheeler was 0-2, but had two RBI on a sacrifice fly and a fielder's choice. Seth Baxter was 2-3 including a double with 3 RBI. Jake Stanhouse was 1-2 with an RBI. Travis Chapman was 1-3, a double, with an RBI. Also seeing playing time were Jon Boss, Dylan Pyron, Howard Kelly, and Thomas Hamlin.
Trent Bigham was the winning pitcher for DuQuoin. Bigham went four innings allowing no runs, one hit, had 9 strikeouts, and two walks. Sam Kuhnert came in for the fifth inning allowing no runs, no hits, had one strikeout and one walk with one hit batter. The losing pitcher was Curtis Edwards. He allowed 12 runs
(9 earned), 12 hits, had 2 strikeouts, and 2 walks.
DuQuoin committed no errors in the game while W-S-V had 5 errors.
Coach Tim Craft was happy with his team's performance. "Trent (Bigham) gave us a good start allowing only one hit. That was a big plus! He pitched four good, strong innings. We did a good job of adjusting against their pitcher. He was definitely a change of pace from what we have seen the last few weeks. We hope to keep improving every game."
DuQuoin moves to round two in the IHSA Class 2A Pinckneyville Baseball Regional and will play Nashville on Thursday at 4:30. The Hornets split the regular season SIRR Mississippi Division crown with Pinckneyville.