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Sikeston falls to Naylor 8-4 in regular season finale
SIKESTON -- Sikeston's offense has sputtered of late and putting the ball in play was No. 1 on the agenda for coach Eric Voorhees Monday during his team's final regular season game.
The Lady Bulldogs put up four runs but were unable to halt a quick start by Naylor, who beat Sikeston 8-4, at the Sikeston Sports Complex.
Sikeston (7-17) will play its first round game of the Class 3, District 1 tournament on Wednesday in Ste. Genevieve.
"The main thing I was looking for today was getting our offense in sync," Voorhees said. "We've been struggling offensively. To come out and put up four runs, I thought we did some good things today and helped to prepare ourselves for districts."
Runs have been at a premium for the Lady Bulldogs during its previous three games losing to Kelly, East Carter and Saxony Lutheran by a combined score of 13-1. Their loss to Naylor is Sikeston's fourth defeat in a row.
"We put the ball in play and had some hard-hit balls,"Voorhees said. "That's mainly what I was looking for more than anything. We cut down on the strikeouts. The number of balls we squared up that maybe went right at them, those are the things I was looking for because those have certainly been absent the last couple of weeks."
Sikeston scattered five hits and took advantage of four Naylor errors in the fourth inning to score three of its four runs. By that time, the Lady Bulldogs were facing a 6-run deficit caused by timely hitting from Naylor and a few blunders from Sikeston's defense.
"We've started to put more runs on the board," Naylor coach Gene Deckard said. "We got second at a tournament this weekend where we averaged 10 runs a game. We're starting to hit the ball better and we're trying to keep the ball out of the air as much as we can. If we can do that, we can score runs in a hurry."
Naylor (11-13) jumped out to a 2-0 lead after the first inning that ballooned to a 6-0 advantage after the second. Back to back Sikeston errors led to a 2-run single by Gracie Gargac in the first inning. Gargac hurt Sikeston again in the second inning with another 2-run single to push Naylor's lead to 6-0.
Gargac finished the day with two hits, five RBIs and pitched a complete game for the Lady Eagles striking out six.
"Gracie's done this all year long," Deckard said. "She gets us ground balls and most of the time we have her backed up pretty good. It seemed like her arm was a little slow today after throwing three games on Saturday. She threw strikes and did her job. At the plate, we preach with runners on second and third, move the runners. She did what she's supposed to do and that's the sign of a good, knowledgeable player."
After holding solid on defense the first three innings, Naylor slipped in the fourth and allowed four errors that led to three runs for Sikeston.
The Lady Bulldogs cut Naylor's lead in half when Naylor shortstop Chelsea Rigdon appeared to have been bumped by an approaching Tyeshia Mitchell running from second to third allowing the ball to squirt past Rigdon and two runs score.
Four of Sikeston's five base runners reached on errors.
"We've been notorious for that this year," Deckard said. "We'd get a lead and just let them back in. We seem to ease up for whatever reason and let the other team back in. After that, you never know what could happen. We should have clamped down and got out of that with no more than one run scored there."
An error and an RBI groundout by Gargac gave Naylor two runs in the top of the sixth to help seal the win. Sikeston pushed its last run across in the bottom of the seventh after an RBI single by Noe.
Noe was also charged with the loss after pitching all seven innings. She allowed four earned runs on 10 hits, one walk and four strikeouts. Naylor also played its final regular season game before starting the Class 1, District 1 tournament on Wednesday at Three Rivers College. They enter as the second seed and will play Chaffee -- a team they've split with in two games this season -- in the first round.
"I really liked our first two innings and we finally settled down, gritted our teeth and got the game over with," Deckard said. "After three games Saturday and coming back today to get a win, that's big."
Sikeston enters the district tournament on Wednesday as the third seed and will play sixth-seeded Fredericktown, who represents Sikeston's last win on Sept. 23 by a final of 17-7. The tournament will be played on Ste. Genevieve's Challenger Baseball turf field that was completed in March early this year.
"They could sure up defensively and present some problems," Voorhees said about Fredericktown. "They've got some pretty good pitching, they've got some good hitters that hit us real well. It's going to be on turf so that's definitely going to be different than what we're used to. We've got our work cut out for us each round. Hopefully we can play well and be fortunate to be there in the end."
Naylor 240 002 0 -- 8 10 4
Sikeston 000 300 1 -- 4 5 5
WP -- Gracie Gargac. LP -- Kylie Noe. Multiple hitters: (N) Lexi Day 2-4, Callee Pickrell 2-4, Gargac 2-4. 2B: (S) Ashton Drake.