BASEBALL: P'ville-Du Quoin stays alive in Division Tournament
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Pinckneyville-Du Quoin scored in seven of the eight innings in which they came to bat, racking up sixteen hits in a 10-3 win over Carrier Mills to stay alive in the Senior American Legion 5th Division Tournament.
Bryant Shute (3-5, 2B) and Kyle Mueller (3-3, 2 2B, BB) both had three hits and C.J. Opp added a three-run homer to lead Posts 2504 & 647 into Thursday's 1:00 p.m. elimination game with Alton.
"The last thing I said to them yesterday is that anybody who isn't committed to seeing this thing through, just don't show up today. I had all twelve guys show up today," said Pinckneyville-Du Quoin coach Sean Patrick. "They were out here to play hard and get a job done."
Carrier Mills Post 364 starting pitcher Austin Ferrell ran into trouble right away in the bottom of the first when Shute led off with a double for Pinckneyville-Du Quoin. John Goodrich moved Shute to third before Nate Boss's grounder to short brought him in to put Posts 2504 & 647 on top 1-0.
Mueller and Adam Barczewski both doubled in the bottom of the second, Barczewski's two-bagger bringing Mueller in to score. Boss doubled and scored in the third to make it 3-0.
2504/647 starter Brett Warchol cruised through the first three innings unharmed, but gave up singles to Drake Patton and Daine Hish in the top of the fourth as Carrier Mills drew to within two.
With P-DQ up 4-2 in the bottom of the sixth, Goordich and Boss singled in front of a two-out, three-run blast by Opp that gave 2504/647 all the cushion they would need against a Post 364 bunch that committed five errors defensively.
"We've got a bunch younger guys, and it was rough on them playing the older guys," said Carrier Mills coach David Betz. "They just kind of looked spooked today, we usually don't make that many errors. I'm not making any excuses for them, but we've done it the last two games now. We played a little better this game, but we didn't play good enough for the competition."
Ehren Kirby doubled in a run for Post 364 in the seventh, but the Carrier Mills offense could provide little else the rest of the way.
Warchol got through five innings and gave up one run on three hits, a walk and a hit batter.
"Taking (the 72-hour pitch limit) into account, I didn't want Brett to have to throw more than five innings today," Patrick said, "because then if he has to come back Thursday or Friday, he's still got seven innings to go."
"Our goal here is to play four more games, so everybody needed to get some work today. Evan (Chapman) had a little back issue after our District Tournament, so the fact that he came out and threw two strong innings today was also a good sign."
Behind the three-hit efforts of Shute and Mueller, Goodrich (2-5, 2B), Boss (2-5, 2B), Warchol (2-5, 2B), Barczewski (2-5, 2 2B), Opp (1-5, HR) and Zach Phillips (1-2) accounted for the rest of Pinckneyville-Du Quoin's offense.
2504/647 got at least one hit from every spot in the lineup except the eight hole, where Luke Miller provided a sacrifice fly.
"My hero today was Luke Miller," said Patrick. "Travis (Chapman) needed a break today, so if our plan is to play four more games after today, we're going to need Travis to be fresh. We were able to give him the day off, Luke Miller probably hasn't caught that many innings combined in his whole life and he came out and caught nine innings today for us."
"I was very happy that he got an RBI and caught four different pitchers today to go with it. Catching in 105 degree heat when you don't catch is hard enough, but when you have to catch four different guys with four different sets of stuff, I was extremely proud of his effort today. "
Kirby (2-4, 2B), Patton (1-4), Hish (1-4), Christopher Willsey (1-1, 2B) and Darren Betz (1-4) hit safely for Carrier Mills.
"We've got some pretty good players on this team, they're young, some are three or four years younger than some of these older guys and that makes a big difference on some of the finer points of the game," said Betz. "They'll all be back next year but three, so basically we'll have the same team."
Should Pinckneyville-Du Quoin defeat Alton at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, they will advance to meet Effingham in the finals of the losers' bracket at 7:00 p.m.
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