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Portageville Bulldogs win Class 3 District 1 Sectional
For the first time in the Portageville school history that the Bulldogs baseball team won their sectional ballgame. The big blue Bulldogs took an early lead to defeat Twin Rivers 6-4 on Monday.
The highlight of the afternoon came on a game-ending, diving catch from left fielder Ryan Priggel, robbing Twin Rivers' Zac Hardin of a potential game-tying hit and sending Portageville on to the quarterfinals with a 6-4 win.
“Defensively he’s not our best outfielder and I think he’d tell you that, but he has a knack for coming up big in big situations," Portageville coach Tyler Trover said of Priggel. "Whether it’s him stumbling, rolling over and catching it or catching it standing up; whatever. I don’t care as long as he does it. He came up with a humungous catch out there. Ryan and centerfielder Ian Torrey were converging. At the high school level that’s an incredibly tough catch to make in a big moment like that.”
The Bulldogs scored on a double by Connor Barham with zero outs in the second inning, and a single by Bailey Cook.
Portageville had seven hits in the game. Barham, Ian Torrey, and Kile Adams each collected multiple hits.
Torrey and Barham each drove in two runs to lead and they did not commit a single error in the field. Hunter Gates had 11 chances in the field, the most on the team.
With runners on first and second, Hardin sent a hard shot to deep left-center field that had Priggel and centerfielder Torrey sprinting after the ball and neither calling the other off.
Barely avoiding a collision, both players dove for the ball and Priggel quickly sprung back to his feet holding it in his glove high above his head, with ball-in-tow, leading to a dog-pile in the outfield after the umpire signaled for the out and the end of the game.
“A lefty up to the plate doesn’t normally drive it to left center like that,” Priggel said of Hardin. “I just played my regular depth. Ian’s taller than me and normally catches every one, but I guess I got a little bit lucky.”
Priggel’s catch wasn’t the first big play to get the Bulldogs out of a tense situation. In three separate innings Twin Rivers loaded the bases, only coming away with runs in one instance.
Before moving to the outfield, Torrey started the afternoon on the mound and got a called third strike to end a scoreless first inning after the Royals loaded the bases.
Torrey picked up the win for the Bulldogs in 4 1/3 innings of work. He allowed two runs on six hits and four walks while fanning eight. Bub Lance pitched the final 2 2/3 frames to close out the win.
“We didn’t hit great,” Priggel said. “We’ve hit better, like the last two games we put up those big first innings. We battled though and I’m really happy about that.”
Twin Rivers collected 11 hits. Baylen Teague, Zac Hardin, and Jack LeGrand each collected multiple hits for Twin Rivers.
Portageville has advanced to the state quarterfinals and will host West County Wednesday at Shumate field.
(Portion of story available from Standard-Democrat.)
Pville – 0 2 2 0 0 1 1 R6 H7 E0
Twin R – 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 R4 H11 E1
WP – Ian Torrey. LP – Baylen Teague. HR – Connor Barham (P). 2B – Barham (P), Zac Hardin (T), Baylen Tague (T). Multiple hit – Portageville: Barham 2-3, Ian Torrey 2-4, Kile Adams 2-3. Twin Rivers – Hardin 2-5, Teague 2-4, Jack LeGrand 2-3.