Panthers end four-game skid with 13-2 win over Lions

Pinckneyville came into Tuesday evenings conference matchup against Carterville riding a four game losing streak looking to turn things around. <br />And the Panthers did just that, putting up seven runs in the third inning to highlight a dominant 13-2 win behind five solid innings of work from Grant Jausel. <br />Pinckneyville's patience at the plate was the theme throughout, as Miles Chandler the led the game off with a walk and came around to score on an RBI from Kyle Luke to take the early 1-0 lead.<br />The Panthers patience paid off even bigger dividends in the third inning. Chandler and Tyler Rulevish led the inning off with back-to-back singles and Austin Alspach followed up with a walk to load up the bases. <br />From there, Kyle Luke, Jordan Koester and Kyle Kreger came up with RBI walks to extend the lead to 4-0. <br />Tyler Rice followed with a two-RBI double and Ethan Bowen drove home another pair of runs with a ground out and subsequent error to cap off the seven run inning to give the Panthers an 8-0 lead. <br />"We came out with a purpose today and that was to work the counts," Pinckneyville head coach Gabe Shepherd said. "With the new pitch count rules I think that is going to play a huge factor. Somebody that throws as well as Vaughn does for them, you have to go deep in counts and we started out the game with that. <br />"Miles Chandler was a 12 pitch at bat to start out the game (and) that sets the whole tone for what we are trying to do the rest of the day. I couldn't have asked for anymore out of them today."<br />Jausel played his part from the rubber, as the junior lefty allowed just two runs (one earned) on just two hits and three walks, while striking out seven. <br />The Lions lone runs came in the third with a leadoff error coming around to score and another one in the fifth as a leadoff walk came around to score on a sacrifice fly. <br />"I would have preferred a few more first-pitch strikes, but other than that he worked the ball well, I think he only had (given up) two hits all day," Shepherd said. "Any time you can do that, (give up) two hits, (throw) under 90 pitches &#8211; I will take that every day of the week." <br />The Panthers tacked on two more runs in the fourth and three more in the fifth to secure the slaughter-rule victory, collecting a pair of RBI's from Carns and Luke to help secure the 13-2 win. <br />"We have had some bad luck (of late), but we have also made our own bad luck certain times too," Shepherd said. "But, today we didn't do that. We pitched the ball well, we hit the ball well, we played good defense and we ran the bases well. If you can do all of those things then you are going to have a lot of success."<br />With the win the Panthers improve to 5-9 and will look to carry the momentum into a Thursday matchup at home against conference foe Sparta. The game is scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m.