Bulls 18u builds early lead, comes up short in 11-5 loss to Rend Lake

The Missouri Bulls 18u club began its second game of the SEMO Showcase by mounting a five-run lead, but fell short of the win as the Rend Lake Rascals rattled off 11 straight runs to come out on top in an 11-5 final.

The Bulls lost in similar fashion to their Thursday loss to the Charleston Fighting Squirrels, a game in which Charleston fell into a three-run hole before rallying back to win 7-4. The Bulls initially responded well to the showcase-opening loss, but couldn’t complete the game against a resilient Rend Lake squad.

“I take some good positives out of those losses,” Bulls coach Todd Pennington said. “Played two good teams, so when we make errors or make bad plays, they capitalize on them. But I like playing this good competition so we can figure out the game a little bit better.”

After going up 5-0 after two innings with three runs in the first and two in the second, the Bulls allowed runs in every following inning, including a four-run fourth and three-run frames in the fifth and sixth innings.

While Logan DeWitt and Liam Krauss earned a combined five runs across 3.2 and 2.1 innings pitched respectively, the bulk of the damage came on miscues from the Bulls.

The club recorded four errors on defense, and while the Rascals narrowly out-hit the Bulls at 10-8, six runs of damage cost the Bulls a shot at evening up their tenure in the SEMO Showcase.

“We're just getting their feet wet,” Pennington said. “That's our third game, so we're just trying to learn to play together as a team. We're doing the hitting part well, we're still figuring out the pitching and the defense part – getting everything together. The turf plays a big role. We don't play on turf very often, so it’s a little bit faster game. We're just getting our feet wet.”

DeWitt struck out five batters while pitching, with Krauss striking out another two. Both pitchers allowed five hits, DeWitt earning three runs while Krauss earned two.

Offensively, Clay Cope led the Bulls with two hits in the game. Ryan Cooper’s three-run single propelled him to a game-high three RBIs on just one hit in the game, helping the Bulls mount an early lead.

The Bulls are next slated to play at 2 p.m. on Saturday, resuming SEMO Showcase play against the SEMO Jumbos for their third of four games in the competition. While the first three games of the summer haven’t panned out in favor of the Bulls, Pennington’s squad looks to build upon its performance as the season progresses.

“We're working on the small points, the experience part,” Pennington said. “I've been around it for a long time. We're talking about at-bats, we’re talking about approaches on the mound, things like that, to help them when they get into a big situation in college and help them prepare for that.”