FARMINGTON -- On March 16 Prairie Grove pounded out 15 hits in their 11-4 baseball victory over Farmington.
Farmington took advantage of three base-on-balls yielded by Tiger pitcher Gavin Heltemes (2 2/3 innings, 4 runs, 3 hits, 4 Ks, 6 BB). With the bags juiced a wild pitch allowed Steven Piha to score from third base and Farmington led 1-0.
In the second frame the Tigers banged out 4 hits scoring 4 runs off Cardinal pitcher Caleb Reagan (3 1/3 innings, 8 runs, 7 hits, 3 Ks, 2 BB). Nick Mount kicked off the scoring when he stroked a double into center field which scored Sam Dodd. Two batters later Isaac Disney plated Mount with a single through the middle of the Cardinal infield. A stolen base and subsequent bad Cardinal throw put Disney on third base where he easily advanced to home on a Heltemes infield single. Heltemes swiped second then scored the fourth Tiger run on a single to center field by Patrick Perdue.
The Tigers swelled their advantage to 5-1 at the top of the third stanza when Reed Orr kicked off the inning with a double to center field and then was plated later in the frame on a D.J. Strong sacrifice fly ball.
Farmington made a move in the third inning closing the gap to 5-4. With two outs T.J. Askegaard singled down the third base line scoring Blake Putnam. Flint Oxford followed Askeegard with a hard infield single which plated Hayden Sutton. Sutton earned his way on base earlier in the inning after getting plunked by Heltemes. Two more base-on-balls allowed Askegaard to cross the dish and bring the score to 5-4. Heltemes yielded the mound to Dodd after his sixth free pass, and Dodd, staring down a bases loaded situation, ended the threat by whiffing Piha for out number three. Dodd only allowed one hit over his 4 1/3 innings of work, notching 3 strikeouts in the process.
"He [Dodd] never tries to do too much. He comes in and throws strikes and I've said it before, you can win with guys that throw strikes, and that's exactly what he did," said Prairie Grove coach Mitch Cameron.
Perdue, who led the Tigers at the dish on a 3 for 4 performance with 3 RBIs, plated one of those ribbies with a single in the fourth inning and knocked in another run with a single in the fifth frame. In that 3 run fifth inning Mount crossed the plate on a passed ball and Strong scored on a sacrifice bunt by Disney. Disney added an RBI to his totals with a run scoring single in the seventh inning and then later scored his third run of the contest after Perdue pushed him across the plate with a sacrifice fly to centerfield which gave the Tigers an 11-4 advantage. That margin held up as Dodd worked a 3-up and 3-down final frame giving the Tigers the blowout victory.
"We're struggling right now to hit the baseball," said Cardinal coach Jay Harper. "Right now we are looking to replace six guys from last season and we have a bunch of guys who haven't played in a varsity game, so we are still trying to find out who our starters are."
Sports on 03/25/2015