Dunklin County sweeps Cape Legion

SENATH, Mo. -- The fourth inning proved to be the difference in Tuesday night's district game between Dunklin County Legion and the Cape Girardeau Ford & Sons American Legion Post 63 baseball team.

Cape scored two runs in the top of the fourth inning before Dunklin County retaliated with six runs in the bottom half in a 6-2 victory in the opener. Dunklin County followed with a 10-5 victory in a non-district contest.

"Well, you know I thought we finally came to play that inning," Dunklin County coach Jamie Johnson said. "We came out a little sluggish, but we finally put up some good at-bats and had a great inning. We had the slam by [Justin] Norman on a pitch that usually doesn't have that good of an outcome. All in all, it was a good inning for us."

Dunklin County had four of its six hits in the fourth inning.

Tyson Campbell started the inning with a long single into center field and scored on Logan Carter's hit that skipped past the left fielder. Lane Spencer scored Carter from third with an infield hit to tie the game at 2-2, and Spencer advanced to second on the play when pitcher Josh Morse threw the ball wildly to first base.

Hunter Cook and Kyle Moore walked to load the bases, and Norman followed with his blast.

"It wasn't a real good pitch to hit," Norman said. "It was out of the strike zone, but it just happened in our favor today."

Cape posted its first run when Thomas Crocetti scored on a sacrifice fly by Morse, and Cambron Womack later came home on a single to right field by Drew Bartels to make it 2-0.

"When we got ahead right there I thought we had a good chance because the last time we played them at Cape Girardeau they beat us 2-1 so I thought we were right in there with these guys," Cape coach Bill Bohnert said.

Tyson Campbell, pitching on three days rest, threw his second consecutive complete game. He struck out nine and allowed seven hits in seven innings.

"Campbell did an excellent job at getting ahead of hitters and limiting his pitch count," Johnson said. "The game was over in an hour and fifteen minutes. There was not a whole lot going on and I thought he did a great job today."

Crocetti had three hits for Cape (16-17, 2-4 district), while Calvin Lovig had two.

Morse also went the distance. He allowed six hits and struck out four batters.

"I thought he pitched an excellent game," Bohnert said. "He has not thrown for almost a week for us, and I thought that with him not pitching that long and then having to pitch against a team as quality as Dunklin, he did an excellent job."

Dunklin County (14-8, 3-1 district) extended its winning streak to six games in the nightcap.

Kody Kingree took the loss for Cape. He allowed 10 earned runs in six innings.

Crocetti and Womack both had two hits for Cape.