BLUFF FINDS A 4 BEATS A LOST ACE

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- A wrong turn on the highway taken by his ace pitcher had Poplar Bluff American Legion baseball manager John Moon fretting late Monday afternoon as the District 14 Tournament got under way at Hillhouse Park.

But a little more than two hours later, Moon was celebrating his unexpected good fortune.

With No. 1 hurler Jamie McAlister not arriving at the park until the second inning, Moon started Tom Schultz -- his normal No. 4 pitcher.

All Schultz did was fire 8 1/3 shutout innings as fifth-seeded Poplar Bluff surprised fourth-seeded Cape Girardeau Ford & Sons 4-0 in the tourney's opening game.

Later Monday night, third-seeded Sikeston rolled past sixth-seeded, host Charleston 14-1 in a contest stopped after seven innings by the 10-run mercy rule.

Action today will begin at 5 p.m. with the final first-round game, between second-seeded Dunklin County and seventh-seeded Stoddard County. Then at 8, top-seeded Chaffee -- which received an opening-round bye -- faces Poplar Bluff.

Moon wore a big smile following his team's victory as he explained the situation with McAlister.

"Jamie, Blake Blue and Jeff Janecek -- all starters -- were driving here together. They took a turn at Sikeston and went to Scott City," said Moon. "They finally turned around and showed up in the middle of the second inning."

Added Moon with a laugh, "And they ended up sitting on the pine watching a fabulous performance by Tom."

Moon said he thought about sending the hard-throwing McAlister to the mound when he finally showed up. But Schultz got off to a solid start and the manager decided to give the softer-throwing hurler a chance.

"I thought about putting in Jamie when he showed up, but I thought we'd ride it out, and then Tom started doing so well," Moon said. "He had them off-balance all night. His off-speed pitches set up his fastball. He doesn't throw that hard, but it looks faster after all the off-speed stuff."

Schultz allowed just five hits all singles as he struck out eight and walked four. Two of the Cape hits never left the infield and another was on a bad-hop grounder.

"My hat's off to Tom," said Moon. "I didn't expect this. How could you?"

When Cape threatened with two on and one out in the ninth, Robbie Moore came in to retire the final two batters.

Cape pitcher Garrett Broshuis hurled a complete game, allowing three earned runs and 12 hits in eight innings. He fanned six, walked two and hit three batters.

"Garrett pitched plenty good enough to win, but we just didn't hit the ball," said Cape manager Ron Michel. "You have to give their pitcher credit."

The game was scoreless until the bottom of the fifth inning, when Poplar Bluff scored twice on RBI singles by Chris Doran and Kurt Humphrey. Bluff added single tallies in the sixth and eighth.

Doran, Humphrey and Clinton Smith all had two hits for the winners, who improved to 18-15.

Tommy Wencewicz had two hits for Cape, which fell to 28-19.

Ford & Sons now drops into the loser's bracket of the double-elimination event, where it will play at 5 p.m. Thursday against an opponent to be determined later.

"We've definitely got a tough road ahead of us now," Michel said.

Meanwhile, Poplar Bluff will unexpectedly have its top pitcher ready to face regular-season district champion Chaffee in tonight's winner's bracket semifinal.

"Chaffee is really tough and they'll be hard to beat no matter who's pitching," said Moon. "But I feel good that we'll have Jamie throwing."

In Monday's other game, Sikeston (25-16) used seven different pitchers to one-hit Charleston. Billy Puckett led the offense with a home run, a double and four RBIs.