BASEBALL: Panthers work overtime to beat Nashville
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[After blowing an 8-0 lead in their first meeting with Nashville, Pinckneyville responded by winning the next five games in a row leading into Monday's rematch at Rigdon Field.
In one of the season's most dramatic games, Hunter Queen raced home in the bottom of the ninth on an error by the Nashville catcher to give the Panthers their sixth straight victory and control of their own destiny in the Southern Illinois River-to-River Conference's Mississippi Division race.
"Once again our pitching did a nice job of keeping us in a game where we didn't swing the bats very well," said PCHS head baseball coach Alan Engelhardt.
Evan Chapman got the start for the Panthers and struck out 10 Hornets before yielding to Noah Hepp then Taylor Beninati, who picked up his second victory of 2011.
"Evan Chapman threw six very strong innings before running into trouble in the seventh, which was probably my fault for leaving him in there a little too long today," Engelhardt said. "Taylor Beninati then did a nice job coming in the ninth to keep the score tied and set us up for the victory in the bottom of the inning."
The Panthers struck early with two runs in the bottom of the first only to see Nashville tie it up in the top of the second. Marian Brammeier then cracked a homer in the bottom of the second for a 3-2 PCHS lead
Chapman drove in Brandon Long, who had walked, in the fourth to tack on an insurance run, but it wasn't enough to keep the game from going into extra innings.
Nashville scored twice in the seventh off of Chapman, then went down in order in the bottom of the inning with the game tied 4-4.
Noah Hepp got the first two hitters in the eighth before allowing back-to-back singles to Craig Dalman and John Goodrich. An error then allowed Dalman to score before Michael Schubert drove in Goodrich with a single, and the Hornets had the game in hand up 6-4 when the Panthers came to bat.
Matthew Nichols was hit by a pitch and scored on Bryant Shute's single, then Joey Burris drove in Shute to even the game up once more, resulting in a ninth inning of play.
Beninati allowed a pair of singles, but no damage in the top half of the frame. Queen was hit by a pitch, then Adam Barczewski drew a walk to put two with nobody out.
Nichols went down swinging, then Shute connected for a sacrifice fly to advance Queen over to third before Long was intentionally passed to set up a force at any base for the Hornets.
It didn't matter, as Queen raced home with the winning run on an error by the catcher Brett Warhol.
"We have got to have more of a sense of urgency when we get a lead," Engelhardt said after the victory. "We had some good at-bats and innings early in the game, but once we were up, we had too many empty innings. Then once we needed to score again, we did."
Chapman allowed 3 earned runs on 8 hits, but walked none. Hepp allowed three hits in his inning of work, but Beninati shut the door in the ninth, allowing a pair of hits and recording one strikeout.
At the plate, Shute had a monster day going 4-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored. Joey Burris (2-4, RBI) and Brammeier (2-3, HR, R, RBI) also had multiple hits. Chapman was 1-for-3 with an RBI.
Pinckneyville (12-3, 3-1) will host Du Quoin on Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 p.m.
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