BASEBALL: Warriors rebound after heartbreaking loss to Carterville

The Fifteenth Annual Jaycees DuQuoin Middle School Baseball Tournament was held on Saturday at DuQuoin High School. Participating in the tournament were the host, DuQuoin Middle School, Carterville, Carlyle, and Harrisburg.

DuQuoin and Carterville played an extremely exciting and close game in the first game of the day. Carterville ended up winning the game in the bottom of the seventh. The game was tied at 7-7 with two outs in the bottom of the seventh when Carterville scored on a pass ball. It was a heartbreaking loss for the Warriors.

Braden Lee was the starting pitcher for DuQuoin going four innings. Ashton Smith came in the game in relief and went three innings and was the losing pitcher. Lee's record is 1-0 and Smith is 0-1.

Hank Stewart was 1-3, Braden Lee was 2-3 (a triple) with an RBI, Tevin Lee was 1-4, Jordan Edwards was 1-3 with a sacrifice and two walks, Caleb Vogel was 1-2 with an RBI, and Braden Heape had 2 RBI.

Carlyle and Harrisburg played the second game of the day with Harrisburg winning 7-4. Harrisburg moved into the winner's bracket to play Carterville. Carterville easily beat Harrisburg 8-1 to win first place in the tournament. The trophies were presented to both Carterville and Harrisburg by Jim Dimitroff of the DuQuoin Jaycees.

The third place game pitted DuQuoin against Carlyle. DuQuoin's Hank Stewart pitched five innings of no hit ball against Carlyle. Carlyle ended up with two hits--one in the sixth and one in the seventh, and scored three unearned runs. DuQuoin won the game 9-3 to take third place in the tournament. Stewart was the winning pitcher with two walks and 5 strikeouts. Stewart's record is 1-0. Jordan Edwards relieved in the seventh inning, pitching to four batters to end the game. Edwards allowed no runs, no hits, had one walk and two strikeouts.

The losing pitcher for Carlyle was T. Johnson, who allowed five runs in the first inning on four Warrior hits. Johnson went three innings and was relieved by Mackenthun, who only allowed two hits and three runs for the last four innings. Six of DuQuoin's runs were earned.

Hank Stewart was 1-2 with two walks, Caleb Vogel was 1-1 (double) and two sacrifices, Braden Lee was 1-3 with 3 RBI, Jordan Edwards was 1-1 with an RBI, Klayton Donoghue was 1-4 with an RBI, and Ashton Smith 2-4 with an RBI. Coach Tim Craft was able to play all of his players including: Ryan Myers, Carson Davis, Anthony Spiller, Luke Metten, Will Woodside, Logan Morgan, Bryzn Witcher, Josh Heape, Charley Mercier, Braden Heape, Blaine Bradley, Tevin Lee, and Cameron Spiller.

DuQuoin committed four errors in the game, while Carlyle had 3 errors on defense. The Warriors are now 2-2 overall.

Coach Tim Craft thought, "Hank Stewart did a good job of pitching in the second game. I thought our hitters did a really good job early in the game of putting the ball in play. We made their defense make plays, and we took advantage of their mistakes early in the game. All in all it was a pretty good day of baseball. We let the first game get away from us, but the effort was there."

The Warriors travel to Murphysboro on Tuesday, and are at home with Pinckneyville #204 on Friday. Game time is 4:00.