Thursday's boys prep baseball: Slow start, fast finish for Diamond Indians
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[After a sluggish-and somewhat shaky start-Du Quoin High School's baseball team notched its 17th win of the spring Thursday afternoon.
The Tribe defeated Waltonville/Sesser-Valier 16-8, improving its record 17-8 overall.
Friday at 4 p.m., Du Quoin faces Class 3A Marion to open the Centralia Baseball Invitational. The win was the second of the season over W/S-V and came after the hosts built an early three-run lead.
"We did not show up at all the first four innings," Tribe coach Tim Craft said. "We made four early errors and they all led to runs, We battled back and broke things open by the seventh."
Sophomore Sam Gossett (1-0) was the winning pitcher in relief, striking out three over the final 3.1 innings.
Jacob Stanhouse and Kegan Robbins each had three hits with Robbins knocking in four runs. Gossett poked two more safeties.
Stanhouse and Tyler Shelton each had four RBI.
"Sam Gossett gave us a lift after J.C. Davis struggled with his command,' Craft said. "We also made some nice defensive plays behind Sam."
Craft also confirmed that Du Quoin had received the top seed in next month's Nashville Class 2A regional. Nashville was tabbed second, followed by Pinckneyville, Sparta and W/S-V.