Pirates topple Indians, win first game of season

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Sometimes baseball can be as simple as putting the ball in play and getting solid pitching.
Perryville found that out on Monday at Pirate Field.
The Pirates mustered seven hits and took advantage of five errors as they beat St. Vincent 6-3 to capture their first victory of the season.
“I tell the guys all the time that they just have to make contact and put the ball in play and challenge a high school fielder to make the out,” Perryville coach Blane Boss said. “
The run total was more than the Pirates scored in the three games combined (two) leading into the rivalry game. Perryville senior Fischer Scheiter and sophomore Dane Lauck combined for four hits and three RBI in the game
“I’m hoping that it can give us the confidence moving forward that we can win games if we play good baseball,” Boss said.
St. Vincent baseball coach Corey Sauer conceded that Perryville was the better of the two teams on the day.
“Perryville came to play today and we kicked the ball around a little bit,” Sauer said. “That’s the story of the game.”
Both teams missed opportunities in the first inning to get on the scoreboard as St. Vincent couldn’t take advantage of a single by John Wibbenmeyer and a pair of walks to Liam Krauss and Lucas Schilling to load the bases with two outs. Scheiter stranded the bases loaded with a strikeout to end the inning. Perryville stranded Mitchell Zoellner and Lauck after a double and single respectively.
Boss said the inning was indicative of Scheiter’s outing for the day.
The senior went 5 1/3 innings, allowed two hits with three runs (two earned) with four strikeouts and six walks.
“Fischer battled all day,” Boss said. “It was the longest he’s went in a game all season. He wanted to stay in, but he got really close to the pitch count, but I didn’t want to stretch him out any farther.”
Wibbenmeyer pitched a complete game with seven hits, six runs (two earned) with five strikeouts.
Even though the Indians weren’t able to take advantage of some miscues by the Pirates in the first inning, they certainly did in the third.

Jackson Rellergert, Mason Light and Wibbenmeyer all walked to start the inning, and Rellergert eventually came around to score on a passed ball, while Light moved to third to produce a situation with runners on the corner.
Wibbenmeyer attempted to steal second base, and while he was caught in a rundown, Light scored from third base to give St. Vincent a 2-0 lead.
Other than that miscue, Boss was happy with his team’s defensive performance. Perryville only committed one error in the game.
Perryville held St. Vincent to just two runs in the inning and countered in the bottom half.
With runners on first and second and two outs Mitchell Zoellner hit a ball to first base that was not handled cleanly to load the bases. From there it got a little crazy.
Dane Lauck hit a slow roller to third base and Schilling attempted o go back and step on third base, but Sam Barber beat him to the bag. Schilling attempted to catch another runner straying off second, but it went into the outfield instead to tie the game at 2-2. Scheiter followed that up with a single to left and Charlie Ussery hit a groundball that was misplayed on the infield, allowing another run to score, giving Perryville a 4-2 lead.
“We pride ourselves in our defense and we just didn’t have it tonight,” Sauer said.
Perryville kept up the solid play in the top of the fourth as second baseman Trey Suggs caught a hard line drive off the bat of Shjon Pyle and stepped on second base to double off Jacob Kapp who singled earlier in the inning.
“I preach this all the time, but if we can make the routine plays and a couple of not-so-routine plays in a game, we stand a good chance of winning,” Boss said that’s what we did tonight.”
The St. Vincent offense was kept at bay with just the one hit apiece from Wibbenmeyer and Kapp.
“It seemed like everything we hit went right to somebody,” Sauer said. “You’re going to have those days, sometimes.”
Ussery bunted with the bases loaded to sacrifice home another run and Ethan Blythe tacked on another run to give Perryville a 6-3 lead in the fifth inning.
Blythe came in to relief Scheiter after his outing with runners on first and second with no outs and only allowed a single run to come across.
“That was big to give us a chance to hold on,” Boss said. “That was tough place to come in and pitch. He struggled throwing strikes his last time out. He’s one of those guys that as long as he throws strikes, he can be effective.”
Lauck came in the seventh inning closed the door on an Indian comeback.