GRANITE CITY – Baseball is one of those games where, should a team gather some momentum, it can be pretty hard to stop.
Alton got some momentum rather quickly in their Southwestern Conference game at Granite City’s Babe Champion Field Thursday afternoon, getting on a roll and taking advantage of eight Warrior walks and a pair of errors to score 11 times in the first inning on their way to a 20-0, five-inning win.
The win put the Redbirds at 8-3 overall, 3-1 in the SWC; the Warriors, dropping their fifth straight decision, fell to 2-10 overall, 1-3 in the league.
“It was a good team effort all the way around,” said Redbird coach Todd Haug. “We were able to get quite a few guys in the ball game and we always talk to them about being respectful; they went about their business.
“We’re really happy about some of our guys getting in there, getting an opportunity and playing the game the right way.”
Several Redbirds were able to get into the game and make contributions on the day. “Kudos to Seth Boeschert, coming in behind the plate, swinging the stick a little bit, taking charge of our pitching staff; we’re proud of him, proud of everybody today,” Haug said.
Things snowballed quickly on the Warriors once the Redbirds got going in the top of the first as they sent 15 players to the plate in that opening half-inning. “It snowballs pretty quick and we get another guy in,” said Warrior coach Scott Smallie. “He stops it a little bit and gets us out of it, but once they start getting up, it’s hard to come back at any point, especially with a team like Alton coming off a big win Tuesday (when the Redbirds upended Edwardsville 4-1 on the road); they’re ready to go and we weren’t ready to answer that today.”
Gabe Jarman got the ball for the Warriors and struck out Steven Nguyen to open the game, but a Noah Rathgeb single and walks to Robbie Taul and Jacob Kanallakan loaded the bases and just like that, the floodgates opened; Sam Ballard drew an RBI walk and Aaron Bonnell singled in another run to make it 2-0 in Alton’s favor.
Walks to Mikey Hampton and Derrick Allen brought in two more runs, prompting Cory Slinkard to enter the game, but another Rathgeb hit that brought in two more runs, two more walks, a hit batsman and two errors ended up bringing in the 11 runs in the first for the Redbirds. Gary Volz shut down the Warriors in the first two innings and Alton scored twice more off Slinkard to get the lead to 13-0 through two.
Max Hunter, Nguyen and Jon Witt all saw time on the mound the rest of the way, the only Warrior hit coming in the fourth when Collin Barrett got a two-out triple in the fourth to the fence in left-center. Alton scored once each in the third and fourth innings and five times in the fifth.
Nguyen was 1-for-4 with a two-RBI triple, three RBIs and two runs scored on the day; Rathgeb was 2-for-3 with two RBIs and two runs scored; Taul was 1-for-2 with three runs scored; Ryan Boyd doubled in his only at-bat and drove in two runs; Hampton was 2-for-2 with a double, RBI and three runs scored; and Allen was 1-for-3 with a RBI and two runs scored to highlight the Redbird attack on the day.
Volz got the win to go to 4-0 on the year, striking out two.
The Redbirds travel to St. Louis County for a Saturday doubleheader at MICDS, then take on Carlyle in a Monday game at GCS Ballpark in Sauget before their inaugural home game at their new field at AHS when they host Collinsville in a league contest at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Warriors host Triad in a Saturday doubleheader, then travel to O’Fallon for a league contest Tuesday.
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