BASEBALL: Bigham, Hepp combine to no-hit Marion
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Trent Bigham and Noah Hepp combined to no-hit Marion American Legion Post 147 as Pinckneyville-Du Quoin Posts 2504 & 647 squeaked out a 5-4 victory at Rigdon Field on Monday evening.
Bigham was effectively wild, allowing eight runners to reach base via the walk, but fanned six before giving way to Hepp, who picked up the save with an inning and two thirds, no hits, one walk, three strikeouts.
Bigham ran into trouble twice, first in the top of the third after four walks resulted in Marion tying it up 1-1. The righthander then got Jordan Allensworth to ground into a 6-4-3 double play to end the threat without further damage.
P-DQ jumped back ahead in the bottom of the inning off of Marion starter Sammy Stearns with singles by Brandon George and Craig Dahlman setting up Adam Barczewski's two-out, two-RBI double. Seth Baxter followed with a single to plate Barczewski, and the home team led 4-1.
George singled and scored on a sac-fly by Barczewski in the fifth for an insurance run, one Posts 2504 & 647 would need.
In the top of the sixth, Bigham lost his command and gave free passes to Coty Wece, Cody Smith and Alex Liebenrood before Hepp was brought in to stop the bleeding. Hepp walked Nick Dean to bring Smith across, but if not for miscues in the field, Pinckneyville-Du Quoin would have escaped the inning before Allensworth and Liebenrood came in to make it 5-4.
Hepp went right to work in the seventh, whiffing Wece and Smith before getting Allensworth to fly out to center.
George was a perfect 3-for-3 with three singles, scoring twice. Dahlman (2-2, BB, 2B), Barczewski (2-2, 2B, 2 R, 3 RBI, SAC) and Baxter (2-2, BB, RBI) each had two hits.
Bryant Shute (1-4) and Bryce Harre (1-4) also had base hits.
Pinckneyville-Du Quoin's Senior Legion team (7-4) plays again on Tuesday at Benton, with the first pitch set for 6:00 p.m.
<u>Juniors sweep Steeleville</u>
The Pinckneyville-Du Quoin Junior (#1) Legion squad swept a road doubleheader at Steeleville on Monday with a pair of complete games by their starting pitchers.
Joey Burris struck out 15 batters to pick up the 8-1 victory on the hill in game one. Travis Chapman (2-4, RBI), Dylan Hardin (1-4, RBI) and Evan Chapman (1-4, RBI) led the way at the plate for P-DQ.
In the nightcap, Justin Bumann had 8 strikeouts in an 11-3 complete game win. Hardin (2-3, 2 RBI), Justyn Rushing (2-2, RBI) and E. Chapman (2-3) each had two hits for Pinckneyville-Du Quoin.
The #1 Junior team travels to Chester for a Wednesday doubleheader beginning at 6:00 p.m.
The #2 Juniors are at Trico on Tuesday for a 4:00 p.m. doubleheader.
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