Sikeston's Cota no-hits Bearcats

Bulldogs move into championship game against Jackson

CAPE GIRARDEAU - The Sikeston Bulldogs baseball team advanced to the finals of the SEMO Conference Tournament for the second year in a row with a 7-0 victory against Dexter behind a no-hitter from Chris Cota on Saturday at Capaha Field.

The senior right-hander, making his first start in more than a month since breaking his index finger, made it a memorable return with his first career no-no.

"This is his first start back and for him to throw a no-hitter lets me know that his finger's feeling a lot better," said Sikeston head coach Kevin Self. "He threw strikes and he made them put it in play. That gives us a big boost in the pitching department with districts coming up."

Dexter (11-4) entered the tournament as the No. 2 seed, but the third-seeded Bulldogs soundly defeated the Bearcats for the second time this year, including a 13-2 victory last month.

"You think about our conference and how many good teams are in it -- yeah it feels pretty good to make it back to the finals," said Self. "Now we want to take the next step and win it."

Sikeston reached the finals last year but were defeated in the title game 5-0 by Chaffee.

The Bulldogs (15-2), which have now won 10 straight games, will play fourth-seeded Jackson (12-5) tonight at 8:00 at Capaha Field. The Indians upset top-seeded Notre Dame 5-2 on Saturday.

Jackson defeated Sikeston 10-9 earlier in the year.

"Jackson's got an awfully good club," said Self. "We're going to have to bring our 'A' game to beat them."

Against Dexter on Saturday, Cota faced 26 batters, just five over the minimum. He struck out four and walked four.

"He actually was getting stronger as the game went on -- he had more pop late," said Self. "All four of his strikeouts were from the fifth inning on."

The Bulldogs jumped ahead 1-0 with a run in the bottom of the second inning. Sikeston extended the lead to 4-0 when Lance Rhodes cleared the bases with a double.

He would eventually score on a sacrifice fly by Scotty Keenan to make it 5-0.

The Bulldogs tacked on two more runs in the fifth inning to knock out Dexter starter Josh Miller, who took the loss.

Miller allowed seven runs off eight hits with a walk and a strikeout.

"We had some big, timely hits," said Self. "We also had a lot of sacrifice flies. We had two against Dexter and two against Cape on Friday. That's big when you can manufacture runs like that. We've been doing a good job with situational hitting the last couple of games."

Sikeston was led offensively by Blake DeWitt (2-3, run, 2B) and Jamie Puckett (2-3, 3 runs, 2B, 3B, RBI).

Others were Drew Lawrence (1-2, run, sac-RBI), Cota (1-2, run, SB), Travis Deere (RBI), Rhodes (1-2, 2B, 3 RBIs, run) and Keenan (1-1, sac-RBI, SB).

Notre Dame (14-3) will play Dexter at 5:30 tonight in the third place game. Cape Central (7-13) will play Poplar Bluff (6-14) at 3:30 today in the consolation championship.