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EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville picked Saturday right where they left off Friday, defeating defending state Class 3A champ Highland 12-2 in five innings in their opening game of the day in the Tiger Classic baseball tournament at Tom Pile Field.
The Tigers finished up with a 6-4 win over Chatham Glenwood in their finale of the round-robin tournament, though they had to hold off a seventh-inning Titan rally to get the win and extend their current winning streak to 11 on the trot; they took their record to 24-4 on the year heading into a big Southwestern Conference game at home against O'Fallon Tuesday.
“It was a good weekend for us,” said Tiger coach Tim Funkhouser. “We knew we had four perennial powers and to come out on top with three wins was dynamite. We played extremely well (Friday) against Lockport and started off the game against Highland really well and we were able to to get that victory.
“We had the big second (against the Titans, where they scored five times) and then just didn't really add on like we've been doing. That kind of caught up with us at the end; they got the tying run on second base there after a game that we were kind of in command throughout, but just never had that knockout punch. I think that's a good learning point; we just didn't execute towards the end and make some plays we needed to make.”
The Tigers got on Highland right away in the opener, scoring nine runs after the Bulldogs had scored twice in the top of the first, starting when Collin Clayton scored on a Jake Garella sacrifice fly to center and Cole Cimarolli scoring on a Tyler Stamer double to tie the game at 2-2. Joel Quirin and Cole Hansel then hit back-to-back doubles to bring in two more runs before Joe Wallace singled in Hansel to make it 5-2 in Edwardsville's favor.
A Will Messer double brought in two more runs and Clayton singled before Cimarolli launched a shot that cleared the fence in center to make it 9-2 in Edwardsville's favor; the Tigers scored twice more in the third and once in the fifth to bring the game to an end under the 10-run rule.
Edwardsville's pitching was a highlight of the wins; Jordan Yenne had five strikeouts in the Tiger win over the Bulldogs and Austin Ruesch pitched well against the Titans, striking out eight and allowing only two hits before being lifted in the seventh. “The man of the day was Austin Ruesch,” Funkhouser said. “He was dynamite and I told him I was really looking forward to seeing him throw (in Saturday's game) on Thursday, I couldn't wait to see him. He was really good.”
Cimarolli hit a solo homer in the sixth of the second game and that run turned out to be huge when the Titans took advantage of some walks and a couple of fielding miscues to score four times before Andrew Yancik came in and shut the door on Chatham to preserve the win.
Cimarolli was 2-for-3 with the homer, two RBIs and two runs scored against the Bulldogs; Hansel was 2-for-4 with a double, three RBIs and a run scored, Joel Quirin 1-for-1 with a double, RBI and run scored, Stamer 1-for-2 with a double, RBI and two runs scored, Will Messer 1-for-1 with a double and RBI, Clayton 2-for-3 with two RBIs and two runs scored, Jake Garella 2-for-2 with two RBIs and two runs scored, Joe Wallace 1-for-2, Yancik 1-for-3 with a RBI and Reid Hendrickson and Trey Riley each had a run scored.
Against the Titans, Cimarolli was 1-for-2 with the homer and RBI, Clayton 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs, Garella 1-for-3 with a double and two RBIs and Kade Burns 2-for-2 with a RBI.
