Notre Dame baseball team rallies past rival Sikeston 11-7

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Notre Dame's baseball team may have graduated nine seniors from last year's state quarterfinal team, but don't tell it that.

Notre Dame improved to 2-0 with an 11-7 road victory over SEMO Conference rival Sikeston on Tuesday afternoon.

Notre Dame had to rally from a 5-4 deficit in the third inning, but once it settled in, it was able to pull away for the victory on the strength of 15 hits.

Notre Dame sprayed the baseball all over the field and was deadly on the base paths, stealing five bases and often advancing on wild pitches and passed balls by Sikeston.

"We capitalized and ran the bases well," Notre Dame coach Jeff Graviett said. "We had a lot of stolen bases today. Defensively if you take out that last inning, we played a pretty good game all the way around.

"We had 12 strikeouts on Friday, so the way we swung today was a night and day difference. Hopefully that's a credit to the work we've done the last three days, and we'll continue to do that."

Notre Dame grabbed a 1-0 lead in the top of the first when Kyle Campbell singled and eventually came around to score on Jon Lynch's sacrifice fly.

Sikeston responded with three runs in the bottom of the first, highlighted by Nathan Rodgers' two-run triple. Blake Newman then plated Rodgers with a single to give the home team a 3-1 lead.

Notre Dame tied it at 3-3 on Cody Heisserer's two-run homer in the top of the second.

It scored another run in the top of the third inning to lead 4-3.

In the bottom of the third, Sikeston took a 5-4 lead when Tyler Anderson scored on a wild pitch followed by Trent McMillan's solo home run over the left-field fence.

Notre Dame came right back with two more runs in the top of the fourth and it never trailed again.

Graviett pulled starter Stephen Carman for ace hurler Heisserer, who ended up picking up the win in four innings of relief. He allowed just two hits and one unearned run while striking out six and walking three.

"Cody had a little bit of a rough start in the first inning when he threw Friday for us, but he battled back," Graviett said. "I wanted to use him in a little bit different role today."

Notre Dame plated two more runs in the fifth and three more in the seventh to put away the game.

Sikeston's Ross Bohannon was saddled with the loss in relief. He threw three-plus innings, allowing five runs, four earned, off seven hits with one strikeout and two walks.

Campbell went 3 for 3 with three steals and two runs for Notre Dame.

Lynch, Eric Hayes, Tyler Buelow, Jesse Schott, Heisserer and Derek Landewee each had two hits in the win.

Carman threw three innings, allowing five runs off five hits with three walks and a strikeout.

"I thought once he settled down after the first inning, he threw the ball well," Graviett said about Carman. "He's not a kid that's going to fool a lot of people, but he changes speeds and keeps you in ballgames."

Notre Dame 121 220 3 -- 11

Sikeston 302 000 2 -- 7

WP -- Cody Heisserer. LP -- Ross Bohannon. 2B -- Eric Hayes 2 (ND), Jesse Schott (ND), Luke Keefer (S), Blake Newman (S). 3B -- Nathan Rodgers (S). HR -- Heisserer (ND), Trent McMillan (S).