STE. GENEVIEVE — Perryville senior second baseman Ty Peeler finished 3-for-4 at the plate with 2 RBI and 1 run scored and junior starter Waylon Huber earned a complete-game victory to lead the Pirates (12-10) to their first district title in 42 years with a 5-0 victory over top-seeded Ste Genevieve (13-10) on May 23 in the Class 4, District 2 tournament.
Three days earlier, senior Troy O’Keefe pitched a onehit shutout to boost the second- seeded Pirates into the championship round with a 1-0 victory over Park Hills Central (7-16).
Perryville coach Don O’Keefe said he talked with his team about dealing with the pressure ahead of the championship game.
“We kind of talked about it,” O’Keefe said. “It was on the bus. We talked about pressure and I told them, ‘Man, pressure is a privilege. You’ve earned the right to have this pressure.’ And I feel like all year, we’ve gone from not knowing where we’re going to be going to classes at, what field we’re going to be practicing at, where our games are going to be because of the tornado. Then all season, every game seems to be some one-run game, either they’re winning by 1, or losing by 1. “
By the time we got the playoffs. I think we had hardened ourselves enough where we just looked and said, ‘Nothing really freaks us out anymore.’ We’ve been put in about every scenario you can. So when we go out, we shouldn’t get nervous. We shouldn’t stress. We just go, ‘You know what? We’ve been doing this since March.’”
That unfortunate preparation — required by the extensive damage done to school and its facilities by the EF-2 that hit Perryville on March 14 — proved invaluable for the Pirates, who advanced to sectional round, where they were scheduled to face Fredericktown (17-9), which beat Kennett (13-16) 6-2 in the Class 4, District 1 championship.
O’Keefe said his team knows what they’ll be facing when they square off with the Blackcats.
“We’ve played them before,” O’Keefe said. “We know the kids are going to wind up throwing against us. “We know we’re going to throw Troy against them, so you’re going have two really good pitchers and it’s going to come down to, what can the offenses do? Can the defenses both hold up strong and then, offensively, can we scrape those runs across? I think that if we’re hitting, I feel like that our offense could get a couple runs, but this kid’s a good pitcher.”
Perryville last faced Fredericktown on April 28, suffering a 5-0 loss on the road. Last season, Perryville and Fredericktown were in the same district, and the Pirates found themselves taking a 3-1 loss. This season, the Pirates have a slight edge against common opponents, winning 4 of 6, while the Blackcats only won 3.
“Any time you get to this part of the season, we’re down to the last 16 teams,” O’Keefe said. “Everybody has somebody. You don’t just kind of find a way to get here by mistake.”
In the district championship, Perryville opened the scoring in the first inning, after Gideon Steuve hit a leadoff double, then scored on the first of Peeler’s three hits. They added two more in the third, as Barrett Wheeler hit a two-run double, scoring Dalton Fritsche and Peeler.
“Good fundamental baseball,” O’Keefe said. “The leadoff batter gets a double, your two-hitter hits a ground ball to second base and your three hitter gets a base hit to right field and you’re up 1-0. And then, we kind of just kept adding on and you know if a mistake was made, we took advantage of it.”
The Pirates added individual runs in the sixth and seventh innings on a single from Weber and Peeler’s third hit, an RBI double, to set the final margin.
“That was a positive for us,” O’Keefe said. “I mean, pitching has been our strength all year, but then our bats came out. We had 10 hits. We had that many hits, and I felt like our pitcher was doing well, and that allowed us to do something that we’ve been hoping to do for a long time.”
Wheeler finished 2-for-3 with 2 RBI, Steuve and Fristche were each 2-for-4 with 2 runs scored, and Weber finished 1-for-3 with 1 RBI. On the mound for Perryville, Huber gave up 3 hits in 7 innings, striking out 5 and walking 1.
Luke Ferranto took the loss for Ste. Genevieve, giving up 5 runs on 10 hits, striking out 3 and walking 1 in 7 innings.
“[Huber] threw a complete game,” O’Keefe said. “He threw very well, just very calm nerves. He wanted the moment and handled it really well.”
It was a slightly different game against Park Hills Central, one O’Keefe described as “One heck of a game.” In that game, Troy O’Keefe held the Rebels scoreless, striking out 11 and walking none in 7 innings of work. He threw 85 pitches in the game to 22 batters, an average of 3.86 pitches per batter.
Lucas Whitehead took the loss for Central, giving up 1 unearned run on 2 hits while striking out 8 and walking 2 in 6 innings. With 1 out in the bottom of the second inning,
Perryville’s Bryce Weber hit a ground ball and reached first on an error, which allowed Barrett Wheeler to score the only run in the game. Weber, looking to make something happen, was picked off at first and Whitehead struck out the batter to end the inning. Weber finished with 1 RBI, while Wheeler and Lane Yamnitz had 1 hit each for Perryville.
Jonathan Boyer collected Central’s only hit, a 1-out single to second in the top of the first inning.
“It felt like that old style baseball,” Don O’keefe said, “and then and then on top of it, Troy threw really well, didn’t walk anybody, gave up the 1 hit in the first inning and after that retired 20 in a row.”
Don O’Keefe said his team doesn’t get to rest on their laurels.
“We had two great ball games,” O’Keefe said, “and we’re just proud to know that we can put a district title up, but the job's not done. We're going to go at it Tuesday and go as hard as we can.”
