Cape Post 63 drops doubleheader to Charleston

Ty Householder didn't allow a shaky start to ruin his entire evening.

The Charleston right-hander was touched for four hits, walked one and hit a batter over the first two innings of Tuesday night's game against Cape Girardeau Ford & Sons Post 63. But he was able to limit the damage to a single run, then settled down and held Post 63 scoreless the rest of the way in a 7-1 victory in the first game of a doubleheader sweep at Capaha Park.

Charleston scored nine unearned runs to win the nightcap 9-8.

"When he got himself in a jam, he'd make a pitch to get a guy out," Fighting Squirrels acting manager Robin Minner said about Householder. "A [first-inning] double play, and the two we turned elsewhere were big. They had more runners on base tonight than it appeared, but he limited them. He did a good job."

Householder scattered eight hits over seven innings, walking three and striking out three.

"First inning, I was struggling," Householder said. "I was all over the place. Off-speed pitches weren't working very well so I couldn't locate them very good. But second inning, I started settling down a little more."

Cape's Chase Hagerty had a two-out, run-scoring double in the first, and the hosts loaded the bases with two out in the bottom of the second. But Householder got Josh Morse on a liner to center field to end the threat, then held Cape to just four hits the rest of the way. Charleston's dfense chipped in, turning double plays in the first, fifth and seventh innings.

"Our defense was great," Householder said. "Those double plays helped me out a bunch."

"That seemed to be the case all night," said Post 63 manager Justin Lieser, whose squad fell to 13-11. "We managed to get a few guys on, just couldn't get the one big hit. Ty did a great job all night long keeping us off-balance. He was able to focus in once we got guys on. We were just one hit away a couple times."

Post 63's Cramer McGarr and Connor McGarr both had two hits against Householder.

"He did a really good job of shutting us down," Cramer McGarr said. "He really got a lot of pop flies and ground balls."

Meanwhile, Charleston's offense pecked away early and often against four Post 63 pitchers. The Squirrels scored single runs in the first and second innings, plated three more in the third and added two in the fourth. Blake Wolferding was 3 for 4 with two doubles, while Adam Pope added a run-scoring double and Colton Averett and Brady Bibbs both had two hits to pace a 10-hit attack.

Wolferding said the Squirrels talked about bringing more intensity to the plate before the game.

"Getting it from the first pitch of the game to the last pitch, that's what we've struggled with this year," Wolferding said. "It's caused us some problems. But hopefully we fixed that today."

"We came out of the gates swinging, and you saw what happened," said Minner, whose squad improved to 13-17 after dropping three of four games at a weekend tournament in Festus, Missouri. "We've got 10 days until the state tournament, And that's what we gear our season for. We want to be playing well at tournament time. That's our goal."

Meanwhile, Cape is just 4-10 in games not started by its top two pitchers, Hagerty and Morse.

"For us to do something in the playoffs, we're going to need another pitcher or two to step us," Lieser said. "We haven't had that happen so far this year. We're going to have to have somebody step up for us to be the kind of team that we can be."

Charleston took advantage of five errors and six walks in the nightcap.

Cape took a 5-3 lead into the top of the fifth inning, but Charleston scored six times.

Trevor Pobst had two of Cape's five hits in the game, while Hagerty and Matt Chism each had a triple. Charleston pitchers issued eight walks.

Averett had two more hits for Charleston, which had just six hits. Corson Crosnoe had three RBIs for the Squirrels, while Luke Harris had a double and two RBIs.

Charleston 113 200 0 -- 7 10 2

Cape Post 63 100 000 0 -- 1 8 2

WP -- Ty Householder. LP -- Michael Ralls. 2B -- Blake Wolferding (Ch) 2, Adam Pope (Ch), Chase Hagerty (C). Multiple hits: Charleston -- Wolferding 3-4, Colton Averett 2-5, Brady Bibbs 2-3. Cape -- Cramer McGarr 2-4, Connor McGarr 2-3.

Charleston 201 060 0 -- 9 6 2

Cape Post 63 041 011 1 -- 8 5 5

WP -- Austin Aldridge. LP -- Ryan Tegel. 3B -- Chase Hagerty (C), Matt Chism (C). 2B -- Luke Harris (Ch) 2. Multiple hits: Charleston -- Colton Averett 2-4. Cape -- Trevor Pobst 2-4.