NMCC falls flat against Notre Dame, 10-0

Sunday, April 29, 2012

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Capped by a walk-off home run from Jesse Schott, Notre Dame advanced to the winner's bracket of the SEMO Conference Tournament with a 10-0 win over New Madrid County Central on Friday.

With his team up 9-0, thanks in large part to a six-run rally in the first inning, Schott fired a shot over the fence in left centerfield in the bottom of the sixth to send the Bulldogs home via the mercy-rule.

"I wouldn't have ever dreamed there would be a home run today with the wind blowing in the way it is," Notre Dame head coach Jeff Graviett said. "It just shows how hard he hit the baseball and hopefully that will get him going.

"Anytime you get out with a win in the SEMO Conference Tournament it's huge. We put six up in the first inning and that made us feel pretty good."

After forcing the Eagles to strand a runner on third in the top of the first, Notre Dame came up to bat and put their first six batters on base without surrendering an out.

All six scored starting with a two-RBI, bases loaded double by Cody Heisserer batting cleanup. A double by Schott scored another run before back-to-back groundouts and a single scored a run each.

By the end of inning, the Bulldogs had taken advantage of four hits and three walks to engineer their rally.

"They opened the door and whether it's errors or walks good teams take advantage," Graviett said. "That's what we did in the first inning. We put up the runs and gave our pitcher some run support and it went well from there."

Setting up Schott's game-winning blast Notre Dame scored a run in the third before plating a a pair of runs in the fourth to fall one run short of the 10-run mercy-rule.

While Notre Dame's offense soared, starting pitcher Ross James kept NMCC at bay. After squashing the Eagles attempted rally in the first he held NMCC hitless until the top of the sixth when Tripp Keene hit a blooper that just got past the Bulldogs' second baseman in right field.

"We just never got it going at the plate," NMCC Joseph McClarty said. "Their pitcher threw strikes and kept it down. We hit some balls hard, but we just hit it right at them there in the first inning.

"We had a runner on third with two outs and JayShawn just smokes one and it about knocks the second baseman down (catching it). That's kind of the way our day went."

In picking up the win, Ross pitched all six innings allowing two hits and two walks while striking out two.

"He's been a tremendous plus for us," Graviett said of Ross. "He's a sophomore we ran out there and he's just did a tremendous job for us the last couple of weeks coming off the jayvee and throwing for our varsity."

In outhitting NMCC 9-2, Notre Dame was led by Schott, who finished the day going 3 for 4 with a double and a home run. He drove in three runs while scoring three himself.

Justin Landewee and Kyle Campbell had two hits each as they scored and drove in a run respectively.

For the Eagles, Keene provided the above mentioned hit with Kyle Harris provided the team their only other hit in the contest, a single to start off the first.

Notre Dame improves to 15-2 with NMCC dropping to 8-9.

NMCC 000 000 - 0 2 1

Notre Dame 601 201 - 10 9 0

WP -- Ross James. LP -- Jimmy Ash. Multiple hitter: (ND) Justin Landewee 2-4, Jesse Schott 3-4, Kyle Campbell 2-3. 2B -- (ND) Cody Heisserer, Schott. HR -- (ND) Schott.

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