Chaffee baseball team combines offensive outburst with one-hit pitching to rout Bernie

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Chaffee pitcher Alex Davie offered a quick assessment of his team's performance against Bernie on Thursday night.

"We came out and we actually had some offense," Davie said. "It's the first time we've had double-digit runs, so it's good to see our offense was there tonight."

The Red Devils beat Bernie 10-0 in five innings behind a 12-hit offensive performance, two of which came from Davie.

What the junior failed to acknowledge was that he held the Mules to just one hit in his complete-game win.

"Oh, I did all right," said Davie when asked about his performance on the mound. "Kind of everything was going my way. They were hitting the ball right at my guys -- right at the defense -- and that helps whenever they're doing that. It makes it easy to get outs."

Davie retired eight batters with strikeouts, got eight putouts by his defense, walked two batters and gave up a hit to Bernie first baseman Jordan McGowan to lead off the top of the fifth inning.

"I thought he threw the ball extremely well," Chaffee coach Brian Horrell said about Davie. "He got ahead in counts and he was commanding all three of his pitches. He done a great job for us."

Davie, along with senior Andrew Dooley and junior Daniel Dooley, are among a handful of pitchers who make up a deep staff for the Red Devils.

"You know, we're blessed right now," Horrell said. "We've got three or four guys that can throw the ball, and I hate to say who's the No. 1, who's the No. 2, but we've got one senior pitcher and we've got two juniors and we've got a couple freshmen that are pretty special, too, so we're very blessed this year."

Chaffee (4-1) batted around in the second to plate five runs after failing to score in the first inning. The Red Devils added two runs in the third and fourth before Davie's two-out single in the bottom of the fifth sealed the run-rule victory.

"We've been leaving a lot of runners on base," Davie said. "We just haven't been putting all our hits together this year. It's just good that we put a string of hits together and scored."

The bottom third of Chaffee's lineup produced five hits and two walks to go with five runs scored.

No. 7 batter Jason Cicardi was 3 for 3 with two doubles and an RBI single.

"I think the bottom of our lineup kind of jump-started the top of our lineup," Cicardi said. "It gave them more confidence. They thought, 'Well they can hit, so we can, too.'"

Cicardi, a senior third baseman, said he thought he could have caught McGowan's shot that ended Davie's no-hit bid.

"He was just throwing strikes, and I blew his no-hitter and I felt really bad," said Cicardi, who rejected the idea that the ball was not catchable.

"That ball was not hit hard," he said. "It knuckled on me a little bit and got passed me."

Davie said he was aware that he hadn't allowed a hit entering the fifth inning.

"I wasn't too worried about it," Davie said. "We were winning. That's the most important thing."

Bernie 000 00 -- 0 1 0

Chaffee 052 21 -- 10 12 0

WP -- Alex Davie. LP -- Micah Woods. 2B -- Cody Payne (C), Davie (C), Jason Cicardi 2 (C). Multiple hits -- Chaffee: Payne 2-3, Daniel Dooley 2-3, Davie 2-3, Cicardi 3-3, Andrew Dooley 2-3. Records -- Chaffee 4-1.