Five runs in the fifth lift Sikeston over East Prairie 10-3

sports@standard-democrat.com

SIKESTON -- It's rare for Sikeston head coach Eric Voorhees to give pep talks throughout the game.

So when his team fell behind by one run in the top of the fifth to East Prairie, the third-year coach allowed his girls to simply play the game.

The tactic worked as Sikeston exploded for five runs in the bottom of the fifth eventually leading to a 10-3 win over the visiting Lady Eagles Wednesday at the Sikeston Sports Complex.

"The less pressure that I put on them the better they can perform," Voorhees said. "I don't want them thinking we're down or up or whatever. Just go up and hit the ball. That's our philosophy to just stay relaxed, stay patient and hit the ball. It's not going to go through every time, but we have to hope it will start going through when we need it. Tonight, it did."

Sikeston (6-10) picked up its third win in its last five games and did so by continuing to put pressure on East Prairie.

The Lady Eagles did not respond well to start the game when three errors led to Sikeston's first run. Sikeston added another run in its half of the second to go up 2-0.

"Every run they scored was on an error," East Prairie head coach Steve Stokes said. "They had a couple good hits, but those people wouldn't have been up in that situation if we had gotten out of it."

But rather than let the game get out of hand, East Prairie dug in its heels.

Jocee Dunn hit a two-out triple to right field in the third inning, then scored on an errant throw back to Sikeston pitcher Kylie Noe to cut its deficit in half. A double by Jordan Harper was followed by two sacrifice bunts by Demisha Brown and Ashton Allred in the top of the fourth to tie the game at 2-2.

Dunn gave East Prairie a 3-2 lead in the top of the fifth after another Sikeston error led to another run by Dunn similar to her first.

"I've got some kids that can hit a fastball," Stokes said. "I told them we're going to bunt and I didn't care if they like it or not. They put the ball in play and put a little pressure on them. At one time, it should have been 3-0. We gave up some runs with our errors."

East Prairie catcher Megan Chaney gets under a pop fly behind the plate against Sikeston Wednesday at the Sikeston Sports Complex in Sikeston. (Chris Pobst/Standard Democrat)

East Prairie catcher Megan Chaney gets under a pop fly behind the plate against Sikeston Wednesday at the Sikeston Sports Complex in Sikeston. (Chris Pobst/Standard Democrat)

Looking up at a 3-2 score, Sikeston's comeback started when they tied the game on a hit by Jorgia Aters that scored Katie Hampton. Ashton Drake scored on a passed ball for the eventual winning run moments later.

An error by Dunn at short allowed Tyeshia Mitchell to advance safely and Aters to score making it 5-3. Natalie Groves followed that play with a 2-run inside the park home run to give Sikeston a commanding 7-3 lead in the blink of an eye.

"We were in the game, but we gave up too many mistakes," said Stokes. "That cost us."

Stokes said that East Prairie (1-6) has struggled with errors all season.

"I was pleased with the effort," he said. "That's probably the most complete game we've played. Sikeston, they're not bad. Their record is not as good as they are, but they played Portageville tough and Notre Dame too. What I'm stressing to my girls is that maybe we're not as bad as our record says too. We're good enough to not keep making mistakes. That's what cost us today."

Grace Sutton was tagged with the loss pitching a complete game. All 10 of Sikeston's runs were unearned.

"Grace is going to give us a chance to win and I think she did that," said Stokes. "Unfortunately, we made a couple mistakes behind her.

"I'm looking at it as a game we probably should have won against a pretty good team," he added. "Now they've shown me that they can play like this all season. We've got a few more games left so we'll see what we can do."

Sikeston pitcher Kylie Noe went the distance earning her sixth win of the year.

"It was kind of tough today, but (Noe) settled down in the later innings," Voorhees said. "She was kind of wild the first couple of innings, then there were the errors that compounded the inning. She's been pitching real well lately. She's gotten better as the season progressed."