Jackson Post 158 moves on

The Jackson Post 158 Senior American Legion baseball team had little trouble as it opened defense of its District 14 tournament championship.

Jackson, seeded second for the four-team event in Senath, Mo., rolled past third-seeded Sikeston 7-1 on Thursday.

Thursday's other first-round matchup saw top-seeded host Dunklin County Post 303 knock off fourth-seeded Cape Girardeau Ford and Sons Post 63 6-0.

Jackson (36-7) and Dunklin County (23-10) will meet at 4:30 p.m. today in the winners bracket final.

Cape (19-23) and Sikeston (15-14) will square off at 7:30 p.m. today in an elimination contest.

Cody Heisserer pitched eight dominant innings to lead Jackson past Sikeston. He struck out 17 while allowing only an unearned run in the top of the fifth and two hits.

Kelby Brown hurled the ninth inning for Jackson.

Steven Porzelt went 4 for 5 with two RBIs to lead Jackson's 10-hit attack. Trent Wills added two hits and two RBIs.

Post 158 broke on top with a run in the bottom of the first inning and never looked back. Chase Simmons delivered a sacrifice fly to make it 1-0.

Jackson scored three times in the second inning. Porzelt had an RBI single and Wills a sacrifice fly.

After Sikeston cut the deficit to 4-1, Jackson opened up some more breathing room with a two-run sixth inning. Porzelt and Lane Thompson had RBI singles.

Wills' RBI single in the eighth inning rounded out the scoring.

Cape gave Dunklin County a solid battle but could not solve Post 303 pitcher Tyson Campbell, who worked all nine innings. He struck out nine, walked three and allowed five hits.

"Tyson Campbell, holy cow, what can you say," Cape coach Justin Lieser said. "Honestly I think our best chance to score might have been in the first inning with first and second and nobody out with our 3, 4 and 5 coming up. Against a pitcher like Tyson, if you don't get to him early you might not get to him all night and we sure didn't."

Dunklin County scored twice in the bottom of the third inning to break a scoreless tie.

Brett Luna drew a leadoff walk, advanced to second base on a balk and moved to third base when Kyle Moore reached first on an infield bunt single.

Justin Norman followed with a sacrifice fly to left center to put Dunklin County on top 1-0. Campbell added a sacrifice fly to right later in the third to give Dunklin County a 2-0 lead.

"It's district tournament time," Dunklin County coach Jamie Johnson said. "It's manufacture baseball and manufacturing runs. Every run is important and any way you can get them you better get them because they are that important."

It remained 2-0 until the seventh inning, when Dunklin County scored two more runs. Logan Carter drove home the third run with a sacrifice fly. Lane Spencer followed Carter's at-bat with an RBI single.

Campbell added a two-out two-RBI single in the eighth inning to set the final score.

J.C. Chapman was the losing pitcher. He went seven innings, allowing four runs and eight hits while striking out two and walking three.

"J.C threw really well," Lieser said. "But like I told our guys at the end of the game, you are not going to beat anybody with a zero on the scoreboard. Some nights you just have to tip your hat to the other team's pitcher. He's just better than us."

Looking ahead to today's winners bracket final, Jackson and Dunklin County split their two regular-season district matchups. Those were the only district losses for each squad.

"It's us and Jackson" Johnson said. "We'll see what happens. I'm sure he [Jackson coach Mark Lewis] will have a good one [pitcher] going and we'll have a good one going too. We don't know who we are going with yet, but this time of year everybody has got to be ready to go so we'll just see what happens Friday."

Today's other matchup, the elimination game between Cape and Sikeston, will feature teams that split four meetings this season. Each squad won one of the district matchups.

"We played them four times and split with them," Lieser said. "We swept them at their place and they swept us at our place. We know quite a bit about them and have a good idea who they are throwing and what they are all about. They've been playing really good ball and if we don't come with our best game we'll be playing next spring I guess."