SEMO Pirates advance at Fighting Squirrel Classic

SEMO Pirates coach Jeremy McCain considered his team's error-filled game against the New Madrid Babe Ruth Ducks the squad's worst defensive game so far this summer.

Despite McCain's assessment, the Pirates were good enough to hold on for a 5-4 win in their first-round game of the Fighting Squirrel Classic at Notre Dame High School on Thursday.

"If you can win your worst game of the year so far, we'll take it," McCain said.

The Pirates (16-1), the Leopold Senior Babe Ruth team, led 3-0 after three innings.

First baseman Tyson Campbell reached second on a throwing error by the shortstop and scored when Joe Elfrink dribbled an infield single with the bases loaded in the second inning. Casey Graham then bunted and was tagged out, allowing Brad Freed to score to make it 2-0.

Garrett Potts reached when the center fielder dropped a fly ball in the third and scored on a hit down the third-base line by Campbell.

The Ducks cut it to 3-1 on a sacrifice fly in the fourth and tied it in the fifth when Graham, the second baseman, dropped a challenging popup behind second with runners on second and third.

"I think what happens there, Casey calls that ball a little too early," McCain said. "I think that's probably [center fielder] Audie [Hay's] ball, who's pretty good out there, and I think he just gave up on it when Casey called it too early. That's a tough ball with two guys on, going back over his shoulder like that. Casey makes a lot of those plays."

Elfrink was hit by a pitch to lead off the bottom of the sixth and was sacrificed to second. He later scored the go-ahead run on a throwing error by the shortstop. The Pirates got a needed insurance run when Potts scored on a fielding error by the shortstop to make it 5-3.

Ducks pinch hitter Jacob Kallemier led off the seventh with a ball hit up the middle that deflected off pitcher Blake White's glove for an error.

A groundout moved Kallemier to second and he advanced to third on a throwing error by third baseman Cody Harris that allowed the potential tying run to reach. Kallemier scored on a sacrifice fly to center before a flyout ended the game.

White, who pitched three innings in relief, was credited with the win. He allowed one hit, struck out a pair and walked one.

"[White] broke his hand in the high school season, so that's probably only his third or fourth time on the mound since then and we haven't went real deep with him," McCain said. "If he throws strikes there we can win that game. He had a little ground ball hit back to him that he probably should've caught, but like I said he's a little rusty. We were all right there as long as he throws the ball over the plate. We were just worried about the walks."

The two teams combined for seven errors and seven hits.

"We weren't very crisp today," Elfrink said. "Definitely wasn't one of the cleanest ballgames you'll see. I felt like some of the errors weren't really forced errors, and I just felt like some of the plays that weren't errors, we could've made better as far as giving them extra bases and things like that.

"We're hoping we can clean some of that stuff up by the postseason."

The Pirates will face the SEMO Strokers in a quarterfinal game at 5:30 p.m. today at Notre Dame.

SEMO Pirates 5, New Madrid Babe Ruth 4

New Madrid 000 120 1 -- 4 2 4

SEMO 021 002 x -- 5 5 3

WP -- Blake White. LP -- Tripp Keene. 2B -- Keene (NM).