Cape rolls past Sikeston in senior legion district tournament opener

Cape Girardeau Ford & Sons Post 63 Senior Legion pitcher Collin Prather made things look easy. That set the tone for the entire afternoon.

Prather put in a breezy, strike-filled outing on the mound for second-seeded Cape, which rolled past No. 3 Sikeston Post 114 in seven innings, 17-0, in the opener of the senior legion district tournament on Thursday afternoon at Saxony Lutheran High School in Jackson.

The right-hander, who will play at Maryville University next season, threw seven shutout innings, scattering four hits, striking out five and walking none. He needed just 67 pitches to do the job, with 51 of those landing for strikes; he threw a first-pitch strike to 18 of 24 batters.

"I was able to pound the strike zone all day, and my fastball and curveball were both working for me," Prather said.

"The goal the whole year is first-pitch strikes to everyone and don't give up walks."

Cape Girardeau Post 63's Ross Essner connects for a single against Sikeston during the fifth inning of their district tournament game Thursday.

The victory moved Prather to just 2-0 on the season, but he proved to be the right decision for Post 63 as the postseason got underway.

"He throws strikes," Cape coach Justin Lieser said. "He's a gamer and a tough competitor. Just a great mentality for a playoff game against a team we've seen twice. Come playoff time, you want a guy to throw strikes. He's always around the plate and our fielders know that, so it's easy to make plays behind him because the ball can be hit at you any minute."

The game remained scoreless through two and a half innings, but while Prather did his job, Cape's bats settled in.

A one-out error in the bottom of the third seemed to be the crack that Post 63 needed, as it took advantage and scored two runs, with Garrett Siebert and Isaac Pender each knocking an RBI single.

Then the rest of the team joined the party.

Nine Post 63 batters reached base, eight had at least one hit, eight scored at least one run and eight posted at least one RBI.

Pender was 4-for-5 with three runs scored and two RBIs, while Ross Essner and Siebert each went 3-for-4 with three runs and a pair of runs batted in. Clayton Reynolds and Cramer McGarr each added a pair of hits for the victors.

Cape Girardeau opened the flood gates in the bottom of the fourth, batting through the order and scoring five runs on five hits while chasing Silver Sox starter Nathan Hampton from the mound.

The left-hander exited having already thrown 95 pitches in just over three innings of work.

"We had a solid approach against their starter," Lieser said. "On a hot day like this you want to make him work a little bit, and the second time around we kind of keyed in to some things he was doing. Give our hitters a lot of credit as far as following the game plan and not trying to do so much."

Sikeston reliever Jerrad Sandlen had no better luck, and Post 63 scored eight more runs on seven hits and two errors in the bottom of the fifth, pushing the lead to 15-0.

The bottom of the sixth saw Cape plate two more runs to cement the final score.

Sikeston's lone bright spot was a 2-for-4 day from Gavin Pobst, as the Scott County Central graduate hit two doubles for Post 114.

It was a tough situation for the Silver Sox, who hadn't played a game in two weeks due to cancellations and rainouts, and then showed up with a shorthanded group, rostering just the tournament-minimum 12 players.

"I think the rust only played a factor for a few innings," Sikeston coach Ryan Moses said. "We got down 2-0 and I think we just folded up. Dealing with issues of not having your normal nine and having to play guys from your junior team in spots they're not accustomed to playing. We didn't battle the way that we should when that situation comes up. We just didn't play baseball."

The Silver Sox will face Cape again in an elimination game at 1 p.m. today at Saxony Lutheran.

"I put it on them. [The coaches] can only do so much," Moses said. "They can decide, 'Hey, whatever, it's tough,' and give up, or they can go and knock somebody out. ... I think we'll come out tomorrow and play a little harder and with more fire, but you've just got to hold guys accountable. I told them, 'It's on you guys now.' Today they didn't show up and hopefully tomorrow will be a different story."

Sikeston 000 000 0 -- 0 4 3

Cape 002 582 x -- 17 17 0

WP -- Collin Prather (2-0). LP -- Nathan Hampton. 2B -- Gavin Pobst (S) 2, Garrett Dix (CG). Multiple hits -- Sikeston: Pobst 2-3; Cape: Cramer McGarr 2-4, Ross Essner 3-4, Garrett Siebert 3-4, Issac Pender 4-5, Clayton Reynolds 2-3