EDWARDSVILLE – For the second consecutive night, Alton Post 126’s American Legion baseball team got a one-hit shutout, as Cullen McBride followed up Adam Stilts’ gem on Monday night by allowing only one hit, while collecting three hits of his own and scoring twice as the Legionnaires defeated Jerseyville Post 492 10-0 in a non-district game played Tuesday night at Roy E. Lee Field at SIU-Edwardsville.
McBride faced the minimum in allowing the one hit, a fourth-inning single by Garrett Carey, in recording the win, with Alton scoring all of its run in both the first and fourth innings.
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“Man, what a performance again tonight. Adam on the mound last night, and Cullen tonight,” said Post 126 manager Doug Booten. “They both battle. And Cullen’s performance at the plate. He hit a triple, a double, a single, and he got hit. Yeah, he did it on both sides of the plate.”
Besides McBride, Griffin Bianco had two hits and three RBIs for the Legionnaires, and Stilts also drove home two runs with a triple. Alton had a total of eight hits on the evening in scoring their runs.
“Oh, yeah. We had a lot of guys hitting the ball tonight,” Booten said. “Up and down the lineup, actually. Just proud of these kids, man. That’s five in a row, so we’re headed into the Firecracker tournament on fire,” Booten said with a laugh.
Alton has now won five games in a row headed into the Fourth of July Firecracker tournament this coming weekend, and Booten likes his club’s chances going in.
“I think we’re the team to beat,” Booten said. “We’ve seen all the competition that’s in it. I really do, I think we’re the team to beat.”
Jerseyville coach Chris Skinner thought his team did some good things in the game but gave credit to McBride for his performance.
“He threw the ball well,” Skinner said, “and we hit the ball hard, at times. We had several hard-hit balls; it was just right at them. I was a little bit more disappointed in our defense; they had one earned run in the first inning, got five. Defensively, I think those are still things we’ve been preaching about all summer long. Gotta get better defensively, take better at-bats. I did think that we had a few strikeouts, but for the most part, we had kids making contact with the ball. He just did a good job on the mound. He was hitting his spots, he had his breaking ball was nice; our kids were sitting back on it, and kudos to him, He did a nice job.”
And there are many positives that Jerseyville will take away from the game, as well.
“I thought we had some good at-bats,” Skinner said. “I got to see some guys on the mound; I thought Luke Wagner had a real nice inning, a couple of innings there, and got out of some trouble. Garrett Carey, who started, he didn’t throw the ball badly. Like I said, we had a couple of mistakes out in the field, but he didn’t throw for two-and-a-half weeks, so it was nice to see him on the mound, and he had a couple of walks. But all-in-all, we had kids do some nice things, we knocked some balls down in the infield, and had close plays. We did some things OK, but they hit the ball well tonight, and they played good defense, had good pitching.”
After McBride retired Jerseyville in order in the first, the Legionnaires went to work in the bottom of the inning, sending 10 men to the plate in scoring five times. Jayce Maag opened with a walk and was sacrificed to second by Gage Booten. McBride then tripled down the left field line to score Maag with the game’s opening run, then scored himself on Ethan Kopsie’s ground out to the first baseman unassisted, with McBride beating the throw to the plate to score. Ryan Best then walked, Stilts reached on an error, and both scored on Bianco’s triple over the center fielder’s head to the fence to make the score 4-0. Owen Macias then singled home Bianco to make it 5-0 before Maag forced Macias as second to end the inning.
Alton had a chance to add onto the lead in the second, on a one-out double by McBride and a two-out walk to Best, but a grounder back to Wagner ended the inning. Another chance came in the third, with Bianco being hit by a pitch to start the inning, then Nate Lemons reaching on a sacrifice and error. But Wagner got out of the inning by retiring the side in order after that.
In the meantime, McBride was cruising along, striking out four, and giving up his only hit, the one-out single by Carey. Carey was thrown out at second trying to steal, and John Collins grounded out to short to end the Jerseyville fourth.
Alton struck for five more runs in the bottom of the fourth, sending 11 men to the plate. McBride started the inning by singling and stealing second while Kopsie drew a walk. Both McBride and Kopsie advanced on a passed ball, and Best drew another walk to load the bases. McBride then scored on a wild pitch, with Kopsie going to third and Best to second, and Stilts drove both runners in on a triple to the right-center field fence to make it 8-0. Bianco then drove home Stilts with a base hit to make it 9-0. A base hit by Lemons and a ground out to the first baseman advanced both runners to second and third, and Maag was intentionally walked to load the bases. Booten then lifted a sacrifice fly to center that scored Bianco and advanced Lemons to third and Maag to second, and McBride was hit by a pitch to reload the bases. A force play at third ended the inning, with McBride setting Jerseyville down in order in the fifth to end the game because of the 10-run rule for the second consecutive night.
Both teams now go into the Firecracker tournament to be held July 5-7. Jerseyville will host Group C, and will start off the group stage with two games on Friday, playing New Athens at 11 a.m., and Gillespie at 6:30 p.m, then ends with a game against Festus, Mo., at 10 a.m., with a quarterfinal game to be played at 4:30 p.m. at a site to be determined.
“We’ll regroup, and we missed a couple of kids tonight that should be back,” Skinner said. “But for the most part, we knew that this was a learning experience for the kids. We’re a real young group, so it’s all about them getting at-bats and seeing different pitchers, and making plays out in the field. And we’ll just keep working, and keep getting better. Like I said, kudos to their guy. McBride threw a great game, and we just got to keep battling.”
Alton, meanwhile, will be in Group A at Fairview Heights, and will play Manchester, Mo., at 11 a.m., and McLeansboro at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, then go against Jackson, Mo., at 10 a.m. Saturday morning before playing in a quarterfinal game at 4:30 p.m., also at a site to be determined. Booten knows that his team is starting to put everything together, and feels that Alton could be a tough team to beat.
“Yeah they are,” Booten said. “We had a pretty good start, then we hit a lot of rain, missed a lot of games, but now that we’ve got a few in a row going, we’ve got things going. Early, we weren’t hitting, and now we are, and we’ve obviously got the pitching, and defense to back that up, so we’re going to be the team to beat down there.”
And heading into the district playoffs later in July, the pitching, hitting and defense will be very important as well.
“Oh, exactly,” Booten said. “It would be nice to win that tournament. That would be big momentum going in. We’ve still got three big district games to go, so we need to have a good showing.”
