Post 114 powers past Chaffee

SIKESTON - The Sikeston Senior American Legion Post 114 baseball team pounded three home runs en route to a 21-9 seven-inning win against Chaffee Legion Post 389 on Tuesday at VFW Stadium.

The game was a district outing, pushing Sikeston's record to 7-1 in league play and 15-5 overall.

Chaffee falls to 1-6 in league play.

Blake DeWitt's walk-off grand slam over the right centerfield fence in the bottom of the seventh capped a nine-run inning to enforce the 10-run mercy rule.

It was DeWitt's second home run of the day as he finished 4-for-6 with six RBIs and three runs scored. It was his third multi-homer game of the year.

Adam Garrett also had a home run, a three-run shot in the bottom of the second inning. He was 2-5 with four RBIs and four runs scored.

"We hit the ball good tonight and we hit it hard," said Sikeston coach Charlie Dye. "Blake had another monster night and Jake Priday had another good night. We hit the ball up and down the lineup tonight. Despite the way the score turned out, we needed every bit of it for a while there."

Sikeston led 8-2 after four innings of play but a wild fifth inning saw Chaffee storm back to take the lead at 9-8.

Chaffee plated six of its seven runs with two outs in the inning, but responded with four runs in the bottom of the fifth inning to take the lead for good.

"You can't figure the game out," joked Dye. "If you come out tomorrow night you'll see something different. It looked like we had a pretty good lead on them. They come back and take the lead and they have their best pitcher on the mound. But Trey (Graviett) didn't have his good stuff tonight. It's just a funny game -- there's no telling what you'll see from night to night."

Chaffee's Graviett led off the game with a home run to left field to take a 1-0 lead.

Sikeston tied it in the bottom of the first on Jacob Priday's RBI-double. It was the first of three doubles by Priday, who also had two RBIs, three runs scored and two stolen bases.

Sikeston plated four more runs in the bottom of the second, including a run-scoring double by Andrew Lambert and Garrett's three-run bomb.

Chaffee cut the lead to 5-2 on a run-scoring double by Graviett in the top of the fourth.

Post 114 got three more runs in the bottom half of the inning highlighted by DeWitt's titanic two-run homer that ricocheted off a tree across the street in right field.

Trailing 8-2, Chaffee sent 13 batters to the plate and pounded out five hits, including a bases clearing double by Ryne Wood down the left field corner.

Post 389 had taken a 9-8 lead by the time the damage was done.

But hurting for depth -- the team only dressed nine players -- Chaffee was running out of pitching.

They used three different pitchers over the final three innings but none could keep Post 114 off the scoreboard. Sikeston scored 13 runs over the final three innings.

"We caught them a little shorthanded -- they had some kids that weren't here tonight," said Dye. "But a win's a win. Even when they came back and took the lead our kids didn't get down and that's the sign of a good ballclub. They kept battling."

Meanwhile, Sikeston reliever Jake Kimball shut down the Chaffee bats in the sixth and seventh innings. He picked up the win, allowing no runs off one hit. He struck out three and walked one.

"You have to give credit to Jake Kimball," said Dye. "He came in and gave us two or three solid innings and kind of put things back in order. He held them down and gave our offense a chance to get back on the board and put some runs up."

Graviett took the loss for Chaffee, allowing four unearned runs off just one hit. He walked three and hit a batter and struck out one.

Graviett was 3-3 with three RBIs and two runs at the plate. Wood and Tyler Cookson also had two hits each for Chaffee.

Chaffee finished with seven errors in the game. For Sikeston, Lambert went 2-4 with two doubles. He also had two RBIs and two runs. Kimball was 2-3 with an RBI and two runs.

Sikeston has now won 10 of its last 12 games. The team will travel to play Charleston tonight at 7 p.m. in another district game.