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ALTON - It was a rough night at the plate for Alton Post 126 as they collected four hits and were shutout 4-0 by Conner Pinsker and Highland Post 439 in a pivotal district game at Alton High School Wednesday night.
Pinsker, a lefty threw a complete game while striking out four, walking two and hit two batters.
Alton snaps a six-game winning streak, falls to 20-13 and finish 7-5 in District 22 play. Highland improves to 18-6 and will face the Edwardsville Bears tonight for the district title at Edwardsville High School (District 7 Sports Complex) at 7:30 p.m. Both teams conference records are even at 10-1.
“Both teams were playing for something tonight in another big district game and [Highland] wanted it more,” Alton manager Nick Paulda said. “We came out and made a lot of errors behind Adam [Stilts], and we were making some bad mistakes on the base paths.”
"For us, we had a chance in the first inning to put a run in. We had a chance in the second inning to put a run or two in. We keep missing that big hit and right now nobody wants to be that guy."
Stilts gave up four earned runs on six hits while striking out three batters and walked two in five innings of work.
Highland got on the board in the first inning on a Blake Wellen RBI bloop single to shallow right-field scoring T.J. Zobrist.
“He did exactly what we expected of him,” Paulda said of Stilts. “The one run that we did up in the [first] inning should’ve been an out. Wish we could give that error for Adam’s sake, but it’s unfortunate because he did an amazing job on the mound and we did nothing behind to help. No one out there was on his side tonight.”
In the sixth, a controversial call at first base in favor of Highland allowed for Colten Knebel to be safe. The next batter, Garrett Marti lined an RBI triple all the way to the wall in right-center field to make it 2-0 Post 439. Stilts walked the next batter, and Paulda brought on Cullen McBride in relief to stop any further damage. However, Wellen roped a two-run double making it 4-0.
In the bottom of the seventh, Post 126 opened with two straight base hits by McBride and Zaide Wilson, but Pinsker retired the next three batters to end the game.
