The Perryville Pirates split a home-and-home series with De Soto on April 16-17, winning 6-5 at home before losing 4-0 in DeSoto.
PHS coach Don O’Keefe said DeSoto starter Blake Coleman proved especially difficult for the Indians (4-4) in the loss.
“They threw a dog at us,” O’Keefe said. “He was pretty good. He’s a 2026 grad, but he’s already committed to Southeast Missouri State. That’s who they threw at us, and he was on. He got us pretty good.”
Coleman earned the complete-game victory for the Dragons, giving up 1 hit, striking out 13, and walking 2 in 7 innings. That single hit went to Perryville senior Ty Peeler, who finished 1-for-3 at the plate. The game was scoreless until the bottom of the fourth inning, when the Dragons (7-8) took a 1-run lead. They added 2 more in the fifth and 1 on the sixth to set the final margin.
Perryville starter Waylon Huber gave up 4 runs, 1 earned, on 7 hits, striking out 3 and walking 1 in the loss.
“Our kid, Waylon Huber, threw really well. Waylon’s a really good pitcher. We just couldn’t hit their guy. And if a pitcher’s on, it takes everything that you can to try to be able to do it. The kid we saw yesterday, the lefty, I guarantee he was clocking [90 mph] at times.”
The first game of the series was also a close battle, with the outcome relying on a bases-loaded, walk-off single from Dalton Fritsche in the eighth inning.
“He smoked it,” O’Keefe said. “If it had been a normal at-bat, it would have been at least a double. He had it in the left-center gap.”
Perryville starter Troy O’Keefe gave up 2 runs, 1 earned, on 2 hits, striking out 13 batters and walking 2 in 6 1/3 innings. Evan Hayden threw 1 2/3 innings in relief, giving up 3 runs, 2 earned, on 4 hits while striking out 1 and walking 2.
DeSoto took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, then added another in the seventh to make it 2-0.
The Pirates rallied, scoring two runs of their own in the bottom of the inning on a pair of RBI singles from Garrett Stueve and O’Keefe to send the game into extra innings.
“It’s one of those moments that you look and go, that’s one of those you go, we were a better team after that ball game than we were before,” Sauer said. “We’re down one nothing early. We made kind of our mistake to do that. We’re putting pressure on [DeSoto starter Connor Heister], but we’re just not getting the hit we need to drive in the runs. Then, in the seventh inning, they bring in [Coleman]. This guy’s throwing it, and somehow we find a way to get two runs across.”
The Dragons went up 5-2 in the top of the eighth as three runs scored one two hits and a passed ball, leaving the Pirates in a do-or-die situation with Coleman, the Dragons’ ace, on the mound in relief.
“All of a sudden, we give up three runs and we’re going, ‘Oh my God, here we go again,’” Sauer said. “And then somehow in that bottom of the eighth, we just kind of just toughed it up. I mean, we were at the point where we had the bases loaded, the score was tied, and it was two outs. So we got to the point that literally we were able to kind of say, ‘Hey, we’re going to pull this off.’
Troy O’Keefe was 3-for-4 at the plate with 1 RBI and 1 run scored, while Fritsche was 2-for-5 with 1 RBI and one run scored, and Steuve was 2-for-3 with 2 runs scored. Barrett Wheeler, Peeler, Huber, Bryce Weber, and Eli Hemingway had one hit each.
“We used a lot of kids in that game,” O’Keefe said. “Everybody tries to look at who your guys are. They always point out who the studs are. While everybody’s paying attention to your one, two, three, and four batters. What’s going on with your six, seven, eight, and nine guys? We won that game because of our six, seven, eight, and nine. Dalton Fritsche had the opportunity to get that game-winning hit because our lineup got on base. They got base hits, and that’s a huge part. If it’s not for them, we don’t do it.”
Perryville was scheduled to travel to Imperial on Wednesday to face Windsor, and then host the Owls on Thursday.
