Slattery adds offensive boost in Ford & Sons' defeat of Jackson

Patrick Slattery was more than enough to beat Jackson all by himself Thursday afternoon.

Slattery went 5-for-5 -- including two home runs and a double -- and drove in six runs as Cape Girardeau's Ford & Sons American Legion baseball team pounded out a 16-3 District 14 road victory that was stopped after seven innings by the 10-run rule.

Cape improved to 21-11 overall and 7-1 in District 14. Ford & Sons leads the district and is closing in on the top seed for the district tournament. Jackson fell to 20-16 and 1-6.

"We've been hitting the ball well the last couple of weeks," Cape manager Tom Reinagel said.

Nobody hit the ball batter Thursday than Slattery, who leads Cape with six home runs. Both of his shots at Jackson's Legion Field -- which is not unusually small -- cleared the fences by plenty, one coming to left and another to the opposite field in right.

"This is definitely one of the better games I've played," a smiling Slattery said. "Everybody was swinging it pretty good today."

In posting their second win over Jackson in a little more than a week, Cape pounded out 17 hits and three home runs, the other long ball coming from Lee Essner.

Ford & Sons also had four doubles, two coming from Tyler Schlosser, who went 3-for-4 and had two RBIs. Seth Hudson was also 3-for-4, including a double. Essner and Blake Urhahn both added two hits. Essner and Chris Conrad each drove in a pair of runs.

"We really need to keep hitting the ball to get ready for districts," Slattery said.

Cape's big offensive performance made things easy for ace pitcher John Thies, who said he didn't have his best stuff but still dominated the opposition.

Thies, a left-hander who no-hit Chaffee in his last district game, allowed Jackson just two hits -- both singles, one of which never left the infield. In seven innings, he struck out nine and walked two. The three runs he gave up, all coming in the fourth inning, were unearned thanks to a pair of errors.

"That was pathetic, how slow I was throwing," Thies said, citing a sore back for his diminished velocity. "But we came out and smoked the ball, and it's always good to beat Jackson in anything."

Slattery's RBI single in the first inning drove in Hudson, and Cape never looked back. Ford & Sons moved ahead 6-0 with a five-run second and got two more in the third to make it 8-0.

Jackson briefly rallied with its three-run fourth, but Cape regrouped with a three-run fifth -- featuring Slattery's two-run home run -- and closed out the scoring with a five-run sixth, getting two-run homers from Slattery and Essner.

"Other than the one inning, it was a pretty good game for us," Reinagal said.

Not so for Jackson, however.

"Cape has a good club. They hit the ball well, and they're playing well all around," Jackson manager Mark Lewis said. "Just the opposite, we're not. We just have to get better."

mmishow@semissourian.com

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