SEMO Strokers win first-round contest in Squirrel Classic

One of the SEMO Strokers' biggest challenges so far this Senior Babe Ruth season has been hitting the ball, according to right fielder Dawson Mayo.

That wasn't the case in the Strokers' first game of the Charleston Fighting Squirrels Baseball Classic as they defeated the St. Louis Stars 18-8 on Thursday at Notre Dame High School.

"We've been having trouble sticking the bat on the ball, but today we were hitting, making them make plays and good things happened," Mayo said. "We had a couple mistakes here and there -- I had one of them -- but we had kids hitting the ball everywhere, all over the field."

The Strokers compiled 16 hits throughout the game and held a 6-0 lead after three innings of their opening game of the wood bat tournament.

"The biggest thing was approach," Strokers coach Chris Asmus said. "We took a better approach at the plate and we actually put the ball in play. It's one of those things where if you go up there and you're not looking to swing when you're getting strikes thrown to you, I mean, you're not going to hit the ball.

"I've been preaching all year to my high school kids and now to this team. It's the same way everywhere around here. The good teams, they come up ready to hit the first pitch they see. The bad teams -- they're not ready to hit. They get deep in the count and they can't dig their way out of it."

Mayo, who drove in the first three runs of the game with base hits in the first and second inning, credited facing some tougher competition in previous games to helping them settle in at the plate.

"You get slower pitching and it's going to be easier to pick up the ball," Mayo said. "Especially because we've seen Doug Still throwing 87 or 89, so it's a lot easier to come back to this."

Still, a left-hander who plays for the Charleston Senior Babe Ruth team, was drafted Saturday in the 33rd round by the Atlanta Braves after recently graduating from Sikeston High School.

The Stars got on the board in the fourth inning on a two-run double by shortstop Jimmy Clark to make it 7-2.

The Strokers added seven runs over the next two innings to take a 14-3 lead going to the bottom of the sixth, where the Stars scored five times on five hits and an error to cut it to 14-8, which was as close as they'd get.

The Strokers will face the SEMO Pirates at 5:30 p.m. today at Notre Dame in a quarterfinal game. Oran graduate Dalton Elfrink will start on the mound for the Strokers.

"We're going to play one of the best teams that we see all year," Asmus said. "But we're going to bring one of our best pitchers in. He's too old really to play on our team, but he's young enough to play in legion ball and it's OK with this tournament to play him here. He throws strikes for us, he'll come out and he'll compete. He's one of those kids you like to have around the kids because he's a competitor."

SEMO Strokers 18, St. Louis Stars 8

SEMO 213 143 4 -- 18 16 1

St. Louis 000 215 0 -- 8 9 3

WP -- Brian Whitson. LP -- Bryant. 3B -- Dawson Mayo (SEMO). 2B -- Dillan Vandeven 2 (SEMO), Jimmy Clark 2 (STL). Multiple hits: SEMO -- Jared Yates 2-3, Mayo 3-3, Vandeven 4-5, CJ Seger 2-3. St. Louis -- Mike Murphy 2-3, Jimmy Clark 2-3, Phillips 2-3.