Thies saves the day with no-hitter

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Cape Girardeau's Ford & Sons American Legion baseball team stranded an astounding 17 runners against host Chaffee Saturday.

In most games, that failure to produce in the clutch would be a recipe for disaster. Saturday's District 14 contest, however, was not like most games.

Ford & Sons left-hander John Thies hogged the spotlight on a sun-splashed afternoon and pitched a no-hitter as Cape prevailed 4-0 for its ninth victory in 10 games. Cape is 12-8 overall and 3-1 in the district. Chaffee fell to 5-5 and 2-2.

Thies struck out 17 in nine innings and totally overmatched a solid Chaffee team that features most of the key players from this year's Oran High School Class 1 state runner-up squad. The Central High School graduate walked three and hit one batter.

Asked where he rates Saturday's performance on his individual list of accomplishments, Thies said "it's definitely on the top. It can't get much better than that."

It's not that no-hitters are that uncommon for Thies, Central's ace the past two seasons who has signed to play for Meramec Community College in St. Louis. He no-hit New Madrid County Central this year for the Tigers and once pitched a perfect game on the Junior Legion level.

But it's hard to imagine Thies having better stuff than he did against Chaffee.

"I had command of all my pitches, fastball, curve, splitter," Thies said, crediting Cape assistant coach Michael Minner for helping him fine-tune his split-finger pitch. "Coach Minner has worked with me a lot on that."

Chaffee hit only two or three balls even remotely hard and only once took Thies into the outfield, that coming on Joey Bickings' line drive leading off the eighth inning that left fielder Chris Conrad caught easily.

The closest Chaffee came to a hit was with one out in the ninth when Major Burger sent a sharp ground ball up the middle. But shortstop Seth Hudson was able to make the play and throw to first in plenty of time. Thies wrapped up the gem with a flourish by striking out the game's final batter.

"Seth made a great play," said Thies, who threw 124 pitches, not an unusually high total for nine innings.

Not only did Thies dominate the opposition, he did it while somewhat ill. Thies has been working on a construction job and said the heat got to him in recent days.

"I actually had been sick the last two days," he said. "I guess it was kind of heat exhaustion, but it's good work.

"I wasn't worried that I wouldn't be able to throw all right, but I was worried I might get sick. But I was fine."

The only people sick Saturday were Chaffee's hitters.

"Thies was on. He's an excellent pitcher and he did a good job," Chaffee manager Mitch Wood said. "With that kind of pitcher who throws hard, if you can't lay off the high fastball, you're in trouble. We couldn't lay off the high fastball."

Ford & Sons had 12 hits and received seven walks along with two hit batters. But Cape never could break open the game.

Conrad led the way with three hits, including a triple. Blake Urhahn and Tyler Schlosser both added two hits. Urhahn drove in two runs while Schlosser and Matt Wulfers had the other RBIs.

"All those stranded runners could have come back to haunt us," Cape manager Tom Reinagel said. "But John was the story today. What a performance. And he was throwing better in the ninth inning than he was early in the game."

Cape scored the only run it would need in the first inning without a hit. One player reached base after a strikeout on a passed ball, two walked and one was hit by a pitch. Wulfers' bases-loaded walk plated Conrad.

Urhahn got a sacrifice fly in the second to make it 2-0. Urhahn and Schlosser had RBI hits in the fourth as Cape went up 4-0.

Eric O'Hare suffered the loss for Chaffee. In five innings, he allowed four runs (three earned) on seven hits, with seven strikeouts, four walks and two hit batters. Tyler Nelson worked four scoreless innings, giving up five hits. He struck out four and walked three.

Both teams are back in action today with district games, Cape at Dunklin County and Chaffee at Poplar Bluff.

mmishow@semissourian.com

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