ALTON – Edwardsville took advantage of the situations that were presented to them enough times to squeeze out a 4-1 Southwestern Conference win over Alton at Redbird Field Monday afternoon. The win put the Tigers at 20-5 on the season, 8-3 in the SWC with three league games to go; the Redbirds dropped 15-10 on the season, 4-6 in the league.
The young Redbird team competed well with the Tigers, though AHS coach Todd Haug. “In this situation, you come out here and put your best foot forward,” Haug said. “With that being said, I've got to give a lot of credit to them; we played very competitively for as young as we were out there today. You've got to score more than one run; the hitting just wasn't there today, but I thought we played good defense – we got a heck of an effort from (Charlie) Erler on the mound,” who went the distance and gave up three earned runs on five hits while striking out seven on the day.
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“He (Erler) was good with his pitches,” said Tiger coach Tim Funkhouser. “We took advantage of getting some runs early and we really could have pushed a couple more across and just didn't take advantage of that to capitalize even more; he really settled in and started using his change-up more and his breaking pitch.
“Fortunately, (Andrew) Yancik kept battling at the plate – he's another guy who keeps working and keeps working; he's hitting for a good average, around .330, and he's not hitting as well as he'd like and striking out a little more than he'd like. Sure enough, with two strikes, he gets a breaking pitch and deposits it (over the right-center fence for a two-run homer in the seventh that gave Edwardsville some breathing room).to add a couple more runs.
“That was a big at-bat for us; we needed to push more across to add a little bit of cushion.”
Haug believes his team is much different than the one that started out the season. “Believe it or not, we are a completely different ball club than the ball club that started the season,” Haug said, “and I just don't mean metaphorically – literally, we are a completely different ball club. Our first baseman was a freshman, our second baseman was a freshman, our shortstop was a freshman, our right fielder was a freshman, our veteran at third base was a sophomore – this is the youngest team I've ever had.
“I love how they compete, but sometimes they show their age; we're going to keep battling, we love the way they play the game, we love the way they approach the game, but again, in a perfect world, we'd have a little more experience out there and that's something we do lack.”
Edwardsville grabbed the lead in the first thanks to a RBI double from Joel Quirin that brought in Drake Westcott; Quirin himself came home on an error to put the Tigers up 2-0 before the Redbirds could come to bat; Alton countered in the bottom of the inning when Steven Nguyen reached on an error, stole second and went to third on a groundout, then came home on a Steven Patten sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 2-1.
Both Erler and Tiger pitcher Chase Gockel settled in from that point, both teams not having good chances to add runs to the board before the top of the seventh when Dylan Burris singled with two out and then came home on Yancik's homer that extended the lead to 4-1. Yancik, who took over on the mound with two out in the fifth, gave up a two-out double to Adam Stilts but got Erler to fly out to center to end the game.
Burris was 1-for-3 for the Tigers on the day, while Yancik went 1-for-4 with the homer, two RBIs and a run scored; Westcott was 1-for-3 with a double and run scored, Quirin 1-for-4 with a RBI and run scored and Cole Hampton 1-for-3; Stilts was 1-for-2 with the double while Patten had a RBI.
Gockel got the win for the Tigers, going 4.2 innings and striking out three, with Yancik throwing 2.1 innings in relief and striking out two. Erler took the loss for the Redbirds.
Alton heads to Belleville West for a 4:30 p.m. Tuesday SWC game, then hosts Valmeyer at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday and Collinsville at 4:30 p.m. Thursday; Edwardsville heads to Blazier Field for a 4:30 p.m. Tuesday league game with O'Fallon before hosting Belleville East at 4:30 p.m. Thursday and Jersey at 4:30 p.m. Friday.
