Geile tosses no-hitter to end Cape Girardeau's season

Cape Girardeau Post 63's Jamie Pickel said his team knew it would have to string together some timely base hits against hard-throwing right-hander Nathan Geile to win Saturday's Zone 4 Junior American Legion baseball championship against Ste. Genevieve.

Geile didn't allow Post 63 a single hit.

The Ste. Genevieve starter tossed a complete-game no-hitter and struck out 11 batters to beat Cape Girardeau 14-1 at Central High School in a game that included a lengthy rain delay between the fourth and fifth innings.

Geile had seven flyball outs and three ground ball outs in addition to his 11 strikeouts. He allowed one unearned run in the third, walked two and hit one batter.

"We came into today feeling pretty confident," Pickel said. "Coach just said that if we hit, we'll do all right. Obviously, we didn't hit very well."

Cape Girardeau (28-19) needed to beat Ste. Genevieve (25-3) twice Saturday because the Zone 4 tournament was double elimination, and Plaza Tire already had lost a game.

Geile, who also went 4-for-5, collecting three singles and a triple, helped his team clinch a spot in next week's state tournament in Sedalia.

"I've had a lot of one-hitters, but never a no-hitter," Geile said. "It felt good. With that long rain delay, I didn't even know if I'd get to pitch after that. But I got to come out and pitch and got the final out and the no-hitter felt great. Coach had three of us go out and [warm up after the delay]. He asked me if I felt good and I said, 'Yeah,' and so he gave me the ball."

Andrew Williams started on the mound for Plaza Tire. He allowed two runs in the first on one hit and two errors by shortstop James Obermark.

Obermark said he and his teammates might have been too focused on thinking about how to win two games when they should have focused on winning the first game.

"I'm real frustrated at myself after the first inning, especially making a couple of errors," Obermark said. "I just couldn't get anything to go. I guess we were just thinking about the second game -- having to beat them twice. And they were hitting the ball hard."

Ste. Genevieve built a 4-0 lead after three innings. But Cape Girardeau cut its deficit to 4-1 in the third inning when Obermark reached on an error, stole second, advanced to third on a ground ball and scored on a sacrifice fly to center by Pickel.

Ste. Genevieve came right back though, scoring five runs in the top of the fourth to knock out Williams and take a commanding 9-1 lead.

"I think I pitched OK today," Williams said. "There were a couple bad breaks we had -- a couple errors, a couple bloop hits that dropped in. They're just a really good team.

"We've played them twice [this season] and we couldn't do anything against them. Their pitchers are really good."

After Pickel's sacrifice fly, Geile retired 10 batters in a row before walking Erik Allen to start the seventh inning.

Geile followed the walk with a strikeout, groundout and another strikeout to end it.

"He had some good stuff," Pickel said. "His fastball was probably the best pitch that he had because he could use it to get ahead and he could use it when he was behind."

Ste. Genevieve2115104--14181

Cape Girardeau0010000--104

@z_agate_no tab_no indnt_bld ld:WP -- Nathan Geile. LP -- Andrew Williams. 3B -- Geile. 2B -- Cole Bieser (SG), Aaron Basler (SG). Zach Weiler (SG), Derek Koller (SG) Multiple hits -- Ste. Genevieve: Geile 4-5, Basler 3-5, Michael Greminger 3-5, Koller 3-4, Weiler 2-5. Records -- Cape Girardeau 28-19, Ste. Genevieve 25-3.