Chaffee Senior Babe Ruth dispatches Colorado in Midwest Plains opener

CHARLESTON, Mo. -- The Chaffee Squids opened the first round of the Midwest Plains Regional Senior Babe Ruth baseball tournament with a 7-3 win over Limon, Colo., on Friday at Hillhouse Park.

"It's always a big win when you can get it done in the first round," Chaffee coach Aaron Horrell said. "When you go to the losers bracket, you have to win a lot more games. With pitching, sometimes that wears out in that many games. It was big."

Squids starting pitcher Connor Scott's sacrifice fly scored Cody Payne for a 4-3 lead in the fifth inning.

"Sometimes it doesn't take a big base-clearing double," Horrell said. "Sometimes it's just fundamental baseball like a fly ball to the outfield that will do it for you. Connor had a big at-bat there driving the run in and giving us the lead."

Although Scott didn't return to the field after that at-bat, he still earned the win after pitching five innings.

Reliever Blake Keasler closed out Chaffee's win.

"He threw a heck of a game," Horrell said about Scott. "There in the fifth they got a little rally going and you could tell he was wearing out. Blake came in and pitched well."

Chaffee added three runs when Alex Davie scored on an infield error, Trevor Cannon came home following a single by Jared Walker and Keasler drove in Payne on single in the sixth inning.

"We didn't crush the ball today, but we had timely hits and moved runners over," Horrell said.