Throwing Trey's

Tigart gets his first win on the mound, beats Dexter

sports@standard-democrat.com

SIKESTON -- Trey Tigart finally has the monkey off his back.

After two outings at home and nothing but two losses to show for it, the ace of Sikeston's pitching staff put one in the win column Monday against Dexter helping his Bulldogs to a 4-1 victory.

Tigart's two losses came at the hands of Jackson and Poplar Bluff. Both games ended with a score of 3-2.

"It's tough. Especially at home," Tigart said about starting his season 0-2 on the mound. "But, those were two quality clubs and you can't underestimate them. Those were the first and third games of the season. Today, I think we showed that since we have a couple more games under out belt we're able to finish games like this off."

Tigart did all an ace is expected to do in his complete game effort. He worked his way out of jams and kept hitters off balance. The senior struck out five batters and walked three. He also coaxed seven ground ball outs.

"He didn't have his best stuff, but I thought mentally this was his best outing," Sikeston head coach Alan Scheeter said. "He had to pitch out of some jams and we did a good job behind him defensively. I think we had three errors, but they didn't really hurt us today."

Tigart was given four runs to play with by his offense -- unlike his previous two starts where he was given two.

"We finally got a little run production behind him," Scheeter said. "We didn't have a ton, but we had more than what we had his previous two games. "It's hard to say to only give him two runs and he ought to be able to win. That's putting a lot of pressure on a kid. But with four, the way he throws the ball, it goes a long way."

After a small hiccup in the first that gave Dexter a runner in scoring position, Tigart sat down nine consecutive batters. He have up his only run in the sixth inning when Dexter's Sion Pixley knocked in Brad Potts with an RBI single.

"You had to keep them off-balance," Tigart said about Dexter. "All of them can hit a fastball. You have to be smart with your pitches and keep it down. We had to get ground ball outs to get them. I trusted my infield.

"They didn't hit a solid ball today I don't think," added Tigart. "Our defense was a big part of that. They kept everything in front of them and all that got through were bleeders."

The Bulldogs (5-2) gave their starter a quick lead after the first inning. Josh Hampton, who was the second batter to reach on an error in the inning, scored on a passed ball.

"That early run was a relief, but I knew after both those 3-2 losses I knew it wasn't enough," Tigart said. "I knew we had to get more. We took advantage of a few of their errors and pushed some runs in."

It was a rough way for the Bearcats (4-6) to greet their starter, Potts. Despite the two first inning errors, however, Potts stranded runners at first and third to end the early threat.

Potts gave up three runs (one earned) in four innings of work. He struck out four, gave up three hits and walked one. Dexter's defense committed three errors -- two of which eventually came back to hurt the Bearcats for two runs.

"Brad threw great today," Dexter head coach Brian Becker. "We made him throw some extra pitches there in the first inning with shoddy defense. After that, he settled down and pitched well."

A big break in the game came off the bat of Sikeston's Colton Black.

Black smacked a solo home run to give the Bulldogs a 2-0 lead and extra momentum going into the second half of the contest.

"That energized the whole dugout," Tigart said about Black's dinger. "Any time in any game it changes the whole momentum of the game. The other team sees it, we see it and this game could have went a completely different direction."

Sikeston took advantage of the Bearcats' third error of the game in the fifth inning which allowed Cord Sheehy to reach base. He was eventually pushed across on a sacrifice fly from Doug Still.

The Bulldogs scored again in the sixth from an RBI single off the bat of Sheehy.

The Bearcats made a final push in the seventh inning putting the tying run on base and the eventual leading run at the plate.

With two outs, Tigart walked Dexter's DJ Dowdy and gave up back to back singles to Jordan Miller and Potts. Tigart worked out of the bases loaded jam by getting a ground ball from Nick Noble with ended the game.

"Trey pitched around them," Scheeter said about jams Tigart faced. "You just can't say enough about how tough the kid is."

Dexter out-hit Sikeston 6-5, but the Bearcats stranded 10 runners on base -- six of which were in scoring position.

"We had opportunities all game. We just didn't square the ball up very well today," Becker said. "You credit (Tigart) for that. He did a good job of working out of jams. We never came up with a big hit all day long."

Junior varsity

Sikeston 13, Dexter 1

The Sikeston junior varsity picked up their fifth win of the season keeping them undefeated Monday against Dexter.

Jacob Clark got the win on the mound after throwing four innings. Clark allowed one run while striking out seven and walking one. Sebastion Matos threw the final inning, striking out all three batters he faced.

Clark, Audi Hay and Blake Wolferding all had two hits apiece for Sikeston (5-0), who scored six runs in the first inning.