CAPE SPLITS WITH BALLWIN

Cape Girardeau's Ford & Sons American Legion baseball team pushed its winning streak to three games by staging a stirring comeback in the opener of Wednesday night's doubleheader against Ballwin.

And Cape threatened to make it four in a row with another big rally in the nightcap.

But the visitors from the St. Louis area finally put a stop to that as they salvaged a split at Capaha Field. Cape won the opener 6-5 but Ballwin prevailed 11-7 in the nightcap.

Ford & Sons is now 6-6 while Ballwin is 5-4.

"I like the way we battled," said Cape manager Tom Reinagel. "I said the other night (after Monday's lopsided doubleheader sweep of Charleston) that I saw good signs and I saw more good signs tonight."

In the opener, Cape trailed 5-2 entering the bottom of the sixth inning. But Ford & Sons rallied with four runs on four hits. Rob Carr's pinch-hit, two-run single cut the deficit to 5-4. Then, with two outs and the bases loaded, Shane Kistner delivered a two-run single to account for the margin of victory.

"We had some big hits in that inning," Reinagel said.

The frame might very well have turned on a single by Dusty Barrows that at first looked like it might go for an inning-ending double play, which would have kept Ballwin's lead at 5-2.

With one out and a man on first base, Barrows sent a hard ground ball headed right for shortstop Jimmy Haley. But the ball took a monster hop off the hard infield dirt and bounded high over Haley's head, which kept Cape's rally in high gear.

"The big play of the inning was probably the bad-hop single," said Reinagel. "That would have been a double play."

Said Ballwin manager Ken Eckardt, "That one bit us."

Mark Wittenborn had two shaky innings but went all seven frames for the victory. He allowed seven hits, with five strikeouts and four walks.

Wittenborn, who gave up two runs on two hits in the second and three runs on four hits in the third, hurled one-hit ball over the final four frames.

"Other than two innings, Mark really pitched well," said Reinagel.

Kistner, Barrows and Tyler Schlosser all had two of Cape's nine hits off starter and loser John Peckron, who went the distance.

Angel Morera had two of Ballwin's seven hits.

In the nightcap, Cape trailed 5-1 before rallying to tie with four in the fifth, the big blow being Barrows' two-run triple.

But Ballwin broke the deadlock with a six-run seventh to go up 11-5 and then held on after Cape got two in the bottom of the frame.

Timmy Wencewicz and Zac Fidler each had three of Cape's 12 hits. Barry Ziegler added two.

Ballwin's Kevin Simms had a home run, the only long ball of the night. Simms, Justin Rosen, A.J. Van Slyke and Joe Hollahan all had two of the visitors' 11 hits.

Carr hurled four innings of one-run relief before wearing down in the seventh and he took the loss.

Simms pitched 2 1/3 innings for the win.