Tuesday's prep baseball: Panthers climb back into SIRR drivers seat
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Winning its fourth league game in five tries, Pinckneyville Community High School's baseball team finds itself in sole possession of first place atop the River-to-River Conference's Mississippi Division.
The Panthers, 9-7, rocked Chester 12-2 in a six-inning contest at Rigdon Field Tuesday for their third consecutive SIRR win.
Friday, Pinckneyville visits Anna-Jonesboro (3-2).
Du Quoin, Sparta and Nashville are also just one game behind following Tuesday's action.
"There wasn't anything too flashy that happened today, but we played pretty solid in all facets of the game," PCHS coach Alan Engelhardt said. "Now we have to see if we can keep it rolling against Trico (Wednesday) and then head into a big conference match-up against Anna-Jonesboro on Friday."
Bryant Shute (2-3) grabbed the pitching win for the Panthers, striking out nine Yellowjackets while surrendering only four hits.
Shute walked two and gave both tallies on Justin Eggemeyer's third inning two-run roundtripper.
There was plenty of support early for the sophomore righty as PCHS scored three times in the opening inning.
A two-run single by Matthew Nichols and bases loaded walk to Michael Rakers staked Pinckneyville to its early lead.
An RBI two-bagger from Rakers in the third pushed Pinckneyville ahead 4-2 before a two-run double from Brandon Long and Landon Chandler's base knock stretched the Panther advantage to 7-2.
Nichols doubled home the eighth Pinckneyville run and freshman Dylan Hardin rapped a run scoring single for the ninth tally.
PCHS then closed out the contest with a three spot in its half of the sixth.
"I thought we hit the ball well up and down the lineup today, getting a hit from every spot in the order," said Engelhardt. "It was nice to see Dylan Hardin get his first career hit today; he has been playing so well in the field, we wanted to reward him with some at-bats, and he came through with an RBI single. It was nice to see us put together another solid effort. Shute started to throw how he is capable, and that will make us a much better team."
Pinckneyville had 15 safeties with Shute going 3-for-4 with three runs scored.
Chandler was also 3-of-4 with a pair of doubles.
Rakers and Long each had two hits while Nichols led with three RBI.
At 4:30 Wednesday, Pinckneyville hosts Trico.