Notre Dame baseball team pounds Doniphan

The Notre Dame baseball team's postseason started as planned Saturday afternoon with a run-rule victory over Doniphan.

Notre Dame, the host school and top seed for Class 3 District 1, scored runs in its first three at-bats on its way to a 13-0 victory in five innings.

"Our focus was to get focused," Notre Dame senior Alex Beussink said. "We like to joke around before games. Everybody likes to have fun, but it's getting down to the end here, and we've got to play our best every day from here on out."

Beussink started the game on the mound for the Bulldogs and yielded only a walk in two scoreless innings of work before freshman Griffin Siebert took over.

"I just wanted to get through," Notre Dame coach Jeff Graviett said. "Obviously get through today, but the fact that we only had to throw Alex two innings and got to run Griffin out there was a huge step in the right direction, so we'll be set up going into next week with pretty much all of our pitchers available."

Siebert gave up just one hit and hit one batter in three scoreless innings.

"I threw him and the [Ross] James kid at the end of this week here as freshmen," Graviett said. "But they've been throwing JV games all year long, so they've been logging innings and able to come in. That's what I told him, 'Don't come out here and do too much. Just throw strikes.' That's what he did and gave us a great effort."

The Notre Dame offense already had built a 10-0 lead by the time Siebert took the mound in the top of the third inning.

The Bulldogs took the lead in the first inning without recording a hit. A walk, hit batter, two errors and an RBI fielder's choice by Cody Heisserer led to three runs off Doniphan starter Bo Blackwell.

"He was a little bit slower than what we're used to," Graviett said. "But you've still got to stay in there and battle, and I thought that's what we did today. We put the ball in play. They had trouble making plays, but we took advantage when we needed to."

Notre Dame (17-4) added seven runs on four hits in the second inning and three more runs on one hit in the third.

The Bulldogs drew six walks in the game and were hit by three pitches.

"It's tough when they've got to throw a pitcher like that, but you've just got to stay back and we adjusted well and put up 13 runs," Notre Dame third baseman Eric Hayes said. "That's all you can ask for right there."

The Notre Dame defense did not make an error in eight fielding attempts against Doniphan after making four in its regular-season finale against North County, something Graviett said was important.

"That's going to be the difference if we're going to have a chance to get to Wednesday's game or even compete in Wednesday's game," Graviett said, referring to the district championship game. "We've got to make plays behind all of our pitchers. Good start so far."

Hayes, Notre Dame's No. 2 starter, will face Perryville in the semifinal round at 4 p.m. Monday.

"We did not play Perryville this year, so we'll see what they've got," Hayes said. "I'd rather have played them just to see the batters in the lineup and how I can pitch them, but I guess it helps not playing them, too. They don't know me, either."

Doniphan 000 00 -- 0 1 5

Notre Dame 373 0X -- 13 6 0

WP -- Griffin Siebert. LP -- Bo Blackwell. 2B -- Jesse Schott (N). Multiple hits -- Notre Dame: Eric Hayes. Records -- Notre Dame 17-4.