BASEBALL: Trico takes care of Elverado
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Trico jumped on top of Elverado 3-0 in the top of the first and piled on more damage as the game progressed to leave Dowell with a 17-2 victory over the Falcons on Thursday afternoon.
Eli Fennell took the loss for the Falcons, but was forced to deal with six errors that resulted in his final stat line being a poor indicator of how he threw the ball, not walking a batter until the seventh inning.
The Falcons kept pace early, answering the Pioneers' three-run first with two of their own. Christian Kistner led off the bottom of the first with a single, then Bryce Mathis also singled before Matt Miller drew a free pass. Troy Stewart stepped up to the plate next and drove in Kistner and Mathis with his RBI base hit, and Elverado trailed 3-2.
The bats went quiet for the home team after that, however, as the Falcons struck out seventeen times in the game, most of them coming from the left hand of Trico starter Dylan Whitthoft.
The Pioneers added two in the third inning, three more in the fifth and sixth, and six more in the seventh as Fennell began to wear down on the mound.
Mathis was 2-for-4 hitting with a run scored to lead Elverado on offense. Kistner (1-4, R), Stewart (1-3, 2 RBI), Fennell (1-3) and Collin Hester (1-3) also recorded hits.
The baseball Falcons are off until Tuesday, when they host Carmi-White County at 4:30 p.m. in Dowell.