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Edwardsville's baseball success over the years is a product of preparation – the preparation for the game that's passed down from class to class.
The Under-16 Edwardsville summer baseball team is a part of that preparation, and while the Tigers dropped a pair of decisions to the St. Charles Capitals at the EHS JV field Tuesday night, the experience gained is bound to pay off in the future.
“We're a bit young,” said Tiger coach John Klepak following 7-1 and 8-6 losses to the Capitals. “We have only two non-freshmen on this roster, and it showed in some ways tonight.”
The games were played in wet conditions thanks to day-long rain and persistent mists most of the night. “The wet conditions didn't help us,” Klepak said. “We're not using that as an excuse by any means, but I do think our inexperience in conditions like this didn't help us.
“In dry conditions, we probably make the plays we made mistakes on tonight. Again, not using it as an excuse, but that's baseball sometimes.”
There were some good performances in the games, however. “We had two pitchers who threw strikes, and that's good to see,” Klepak said. “Issac Garrett really pitched well for us; he was mixing his pitches well. We also had some good at-bats from Josh Volkmar as well. Justin Daughtery also had a good game in center field as well.”
One thing the young Tigers have been doing is getting physically stronger “We've had them in the weight room, and I've seen them getting stronger,” Klepak said. “We'll get stronger and we'll get better.
“One of the things we want to do is get them ready for the day they come up to the varsity.”
The Capitals got on the board in the second when, with one out, Kyle Goodwin and Carter Williams both singled and Andrew Gialea walked to load the bases. Robbie Lunatto then singled in Goodwin and Williams, with Gialea scoring on an error on the play to put St. Charles up 3-0. A Williams single and two ground outs scored another run in the fourth and two more runs came home in the fifth before Edwardsville got on the board in the sixth when Caleb Blakemore, Justin Daughtery and Volkmar all singled before Garrett hit a sacrifice fly to center to bring in Blakemore. Goodwin singled in one more run in the seventh for the Capitals, driving home Seth Deneyer, to end the scoring for the opener.
The Capitals served as home team for the nightcap and got on the board quickly when Jake Stamer singled and came home on a miscue in the field and a grounder to the pitcher. Three more runs came in for St. Charles in the second thanks to a series of walks and errors, putting them ahead 4-0 through two innings.
The Tigers responded with a five-run third to take the lead, starting with walks to Jared Engeman and Dougthery and a single by Kyle Wright to load the bases. With one out, Volkmar stepped to the plate and delivered a bases-clearing triple to cut the Capital led to 4-3, and after a walk to Cameron Marsh, Andrew Bridenbaugh singled in Volkmar to tie the game, Marsh also scoring after a Capital error to give the Tigers their first lead.
Singles from Williams and Lunatto gave St. Charles tied the game in the bottom of the third, and the Tigers (off a Ben Ryan RBI single) and Captials (off a Dunham sacrifice fly) traded runs in the fourth to keep the game deadlocked. In the Capital fifth, Barton doubled to start the inning and Lunatto singled to set up a two-RBI single from Suttory to give the Caps the lead. The Tigers made a run at the Caps in the top of the sixth, loading the bases, but Jeffrey Cox shut down the Tigers to bring the game to an end.
Edwardsville will host O'Fallon in a single game at 4 p.m. July 14 at the EHS JV field.
