Peyton Maddox pitches gem in Bell City baseball team's win over Saxony Lutheran

It had been more than a week since Peyton Maddox had taken the mound for Bell City, and coach Justin Simpher assumed there were going to have to be some adjustments.

After giving up a run in the first inning, the junior right-handed hurler settled down and pitched a complete game, finishing with nine strikeouts and three walks en route to a 4-2 win over host Saxony Lutheran on Tuesday.

"He did what he's done all year," Simpher said about Maddox. "He kept us in the game, and the guys did their part to get a lead for him."

Maddox followed up a rocky first inning by retiring eight of the next nine batters he faced, allowing only four hits on the day.

"I felt like the game started kind of slow, and I felt like we kind of fell into that. But we still stayed in it and found a way to come out ahead," Simpher said. "We made some adjustments."

Bell City (14-2) took the lead for good in the top of the third inning.

Cole Nichols led off with a single to center field and stole second base before Austin Hicks reached base on a walk. A force-out at second moved Nichols to third, and Maddox sent Nichols home on a sacrifice fly to center field, giving the Cubs a 2-1 advantage.

Bell City scored a pair of insurance runs in the fifth, which began with another leadoff single by Nichols, who once again moved into scoring position by stealing second. Hicks reached on a walk for the second time, and a groundout put both runners in scoring position with one out. Maddox scored Nichols on a groundout to second, and Bobby Wright sent Hicks home on an RBI single to left-center field, pushing the Cubs' lead to 4-2. Tyler Evans followed with a double that was driven deep down the right-field line, but Wright was tagged out on a 9-3-2 putout at home to end the inning.

Bell City's Peyton Maddox pitches to a Saxony Lutheran batter in the sixth inning Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at Saxony Lutheran High School. (Glenn Landberg)

"Every day when we take [batting practice], it's always situational hitting, whether it's one through nine. ... We always talk about what we have to do to move runners over and what we have to do to try and score," Simpher said. "We work on that a lot, and Peyton, a four-hole hitter, he knew he just had to get the ball in play somewhere on the right side of the field and we were going to get a run in.

"With our good baserunners on base, he just came up looking for the right pitch to do his job, and that's what he did."

Maddox finished 0 for 2 with two RBIs, while Wright, the No. 5 hitter, and Evans, the No. 6 hitter, combined for four of Bell City's seven hits, including a pair of singles in the second inning when the Cubs tied the game at 1-1.

"It's funny because we've got guys every different game, and every game someone steps up and does something that they maybe didn't do the game before. We've got some guys that are more consistent than others, but in those games where they're not getting on base or not getting hits, then we've got guys that are stepping up and filling in for them," Simpher said. "It's just a team effort. They all like each other, and they want to help each other out like a team is supposed to.

"We've been working a lot on curveballs, and I thought we did a good job of waiting back and hitting some curveballs today. The middle of the lineup started us off with that."

Saxony Lutheran's Tyler Dowdy leaves second base on his way to home plate to score in the first inning against Bell City Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at Saxony Lutheran High School. (Glenn Landberg)

Saxony (10-5) responded in the bottom of the fifth when Conrad Bonney singled to lead off the inning. Tyler Amos followed with a single to center field, and Dustin Lorenz scored Bonney two batters later with a single to right field that trimmed the Crusaders' deficit to 4-2. Saxony loaded the bases when Luke LeGrand reached on a two-out walk, but Maddox forced Chase Steffens to ground out to third to end the threat.

"You either get it done or you don't, and Chase Steffens is an excellent hitter. It just didn't work out that at-bat," Crusaders coach Paul Sander said. "If he gets a hit that at-bat, we're probably still playing, or maybe we're in here a little happier. That's baseball. Every day is different, and you don't know what you're going to get. We had the right guy in the right spot up there. It just didn't work that time."

Steffens scored Tyler Dowdy on an RBI double to give Saxony a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, but the Crusaders were only able to muster three more hits for the remainder of the game. Sander said offensive consistency has been a struggle for his team all season.

"We have games where we get 14 or 15 hits, and then we turn it right around the next game and get three or four. ... That's not enough against a good, quality team," Sander said. "If you're holding a team like Bell City to four runs, as good a team as they have, you've got to find a way to win."

Bonney took the loss for Saxony. He pitched a complete game, gave up seven hits and four runs -- all earned -- and had three strikeouts and three walks. He retired the final six batters he faced, and Sander was pleased with the way his starter gained control as the game progressed.

"You like to see a kid meet the challenge when they're struggling a little bit early," Sander said. "Instead of just kind of giving in, he kind of bowed up and met that challenge today, which shows us that we're going to be able to stick with him longer. I thought the velocity on his fastball was up 3 or 4 miles per hour the last two innings from what it was early. I don't know what the answer to that was, but that's just what we saw in the dugout."

The Cubs are off to their best start in more than a decade, but Simpher said his players aren't focused on wins and losses. They just want to keep getting better.

"We focus, more or less, on the process of what it takes, and it's in practice. They kind of understand that," Simpher said. "... I haven't heard one of them mention what the record is, and when they come to practice, it's no different than when it was a fresh season as to what it is now.

"It's been the same approach all year."

Bell City 011 020 0 -- 4 7 1

Saxony Lutheran 100 010 0 -- 2 4 1

WP -- Peyton Maddox. LP -- Conrad Bonney. 2B -- Tyler Evans (BC), Chase Steffens (SL). Multiple hits -- Bell City: Evans 2-2, Wright 2-3, Nichols 2-4.