Sikeston slips past Mayfield 9-8

SIKESTON -- With one swing of the bat Tuesday, Sikeston Post 114's Luke Keefer did two things.

For starters, he drove in the game-winning run against visiting Mayfield Post 26. Secondly, he erased two, lopsided opening season losses to Paducah, Ky., from Monday that had Post 114 feeling blue.

In a 2-1 count, Keefer lined an RBI single to centerfield which pushed Cord Sheehy across the plate for an eventual, Post 114 victory, 9-8.

"When you're ahead like that your looking for your pitch," Keefer said about his game-saving single. "It was a little up in the zone but I was able to get on top of it and hit it up the middle.

"I just wanted to help the team out and get a win."

It took a bit of luck and another clutch hit to give Keefer the chance. After a fly out and a ground out led off the sixth, an error by Mayfield's infield allowed Sheehy to reach first safely.

A pinch hit single by Caleb McCord kept the inning alive for Keefer, whose hit scored Sheehy from third.

Keefer, whose one hit of the day ended up being the biggest, hopes to have put their two first day losses from an admittedly better club behind them. With late inning heroics stealing the show on Tuesday, they're one step closer to forgetting what happened.

"It just shows the range of competition that we face," said Keefer. "That team Monday was just awesome. It's good to see that we're better than what we were against them. It gives us some potential to look at."

It took a valiant, come from behind effort from Post 26 to put Keefer and Sikeston in that position to begin with.

Sikeston posted five runs in the bottom of the third to take a commanding 8-3 lead.

"We got ahead big with good at-bats in the third," Keefer said, "but, we had to battle back in the end."

Alex Heuring, Ben Freed and Jimmy Ash lead off the third with three consecutive singles with Ash driving in the first run of the inning. A walk to Sheehy and an infield error during Trey Tigart's at-bat, loaded the bases and scored another run.

Keefer hit a sacrifice fly to centerfield to to score Ash while Drew Harper helped his own cause on the mound with a two-run double after that.

"We got some timely hits," Crosby said. "We got some guys on and was able to move them over. We had some quality at-bats with a lot of line drives. We swung the bats a lot better tonight as opposed to Monday."

Sikeston was stagnant on offense until the bottom of the sixth. But Mayfield turned it up.

Post 26 scored three runs in the fifth and two more in the top of the sixth to tie the game at eight. Mayfield's three runs in the fifth chased Sikeston's Harper from the mound.

Harper, who also went 2 for 3 at the plate with three RBI, threw 4 1/3 innings giving up six earned runs on nine hits and three walks.

"He wasn't real sharp. He didn't have his best stuff," Crosby said about Harper. "But, he battled and he gave us a chance. He helped his cause with a couple of hits and that's a sign of a good pitcher. Even though he didn't have his best stuff, he battled and still gave us a chance to win."

McCord entered the game following Harper's exit and allowed two runs, one earned in the sixth while shutting Mayfield down in order to end the game.

Sikeston struck first with one run in the first and two more in the second.

Post 114's Paul Fox hit a double in the bottom of the first and was drove in on a single by Heuring.

Both Sheehy and Tigart coaxed walks from Mayfield starter Garret Ballard in the early stages of the second inning. They both scored on a fielder's choice play during Fox's second at-bat and an RBI single from Harper.

Post 26, however, bounced right back with three runs of their own in the top of the third.

A leadoff single by Mayfield's Larry Brown were followed by two more singles from John Lollar and Adam Riley. They all ended up coming around to score later in the inning to make it a 3-3 game.

Sikeston's big third inning, Mayfield's comeback and Keefer's game-winning single came after.

"After last night, I told the guys that we're going to have to have a short memory," Crosby said. "We needed to stay focused and ready to go. It was an exciting win and it kind of builds us back up from Monday.

"Hopefully, we can build off of this."

Mayfield 003 032 0 -- 8 9 4

Sikeston 125 001 x -- 9 11 3

WP -- Caleb McCord. LP -- T.K. Kemper. 2B -- (M) Adam Riley, Kye Wade; (S) Paul Fox, Drew Harper. 3B -- (M) Chris Nance.

Game 2

Post 114 added another win on Tuesday night defeating Mayfield again 11-9 in the second game of their doubleheader.

Post 114' Jimmy Ash received the win in six innings on the mound following an injury to starter Ben Freed. Freed caught a one-hopper back to the mound off of his knee exiting him from the game.

Sikeston scored five runs in the first inning, two in the third, one in the fourth and three more in the sixth.

Post 114 held off a late Mayfield rally in the later innings when Post 26 scored two in the sixth and three in the seventh.

Sikeston will travel to Blytheville Ark., on Saturday for their next game and will play both Blytheville and Paragould, Ark.