South Callaway posts 11-0 victory against Russellville

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RUSSELLVILLE, Mo. - South Callaway traveled to Russellville with a perfect record Thursday and returned home with an 11-0 win against the Indians, improving its record to 8-0 and 3-0 in the Show-Me Conference.

This was the fourth shutout victory of the season for the Bulldogs, and they've outscored their last three opponents 34-0.

Terry Miles got the start on the mound for South Callaway, allowing three hits, striking out four and walking three in four innings of work.

"Miles had another strong outing," South Callaway coach Heath Lepper said. "Any time you can get four scoreless innings from your starter, that's a good thing. He made pitches when it counted. He didn't get rattled."

Three of the four leadoff hitters reached base for Russellville, but Miles was able to pitch out it because of good defensive play behind him and sloppy base running by the Indians.

In the first, Cory Minor singled to lead off the inning, but after a fly out, Isaac Kirchner struck and the catcher fired down to first base to pick off Minor. In the second, Zach Voss singled, but when Caleb Harrison flied out to shallow right field, Voss misjudged it and was out at first for not tagging up. Kirchner led off the fourth inning with a double, but after a walk, Harrison grounded into a double play.

Russellville (3-6, 0-2) had eight baserunners that were either stranded or ran into outs on the basepaths.

South Callaway didn't run into outs on the paths, instead, they took advantage of four Indian errors and many mental errors that won't show up in the scorebook.

"Isaac as a pitcher, made some good pitches," Russellville coach Lucas Branson said. "It's unfortunate for him that some of the mistakes we made defensively kind of costed him and made him throw some extra pitches."

With two outs in the first inning, Kaden Helsel was hit by a pitch. After he stole second, Trevor Miller singled to right for the game's first run. Then, Graysen Peneston singled in Miller to take the 2-0 lead into the second inning.

"We talk all the time that the first inning or two kind of sets the tone," Branson said. "If you can get through that top of the first and put up a zero, then go to the bottom of the first and put up a run, the whole game changes."

The Bulldogs tacked on four more runs in the third, this time using the long ball. Dax Helsel and Peneston both recorded two-run home runs to push the lead to 6-0.

"They relaxed a little bit," Lepper said. "Most of the time your home runs come when you're not trying to hit one. They're just trying to square the ball up."

South Callaway pushed a run across in the fifth, scoring Peneston off an error by the shortstop, and four runs in the sixth to bring the run-rule into play.

"The kids went out and executed on both sides of the plate," Lepper said. "We're aggressive at the plate, we're aggressive on the bags. We try to put as much pressure on the other team as we can.

"There comes a point in time in each at-bat that they have a job to do, and some times, depending on the count, it will be to move the runner over. We've got a lot of upperclassman and they know what it means to move runners around and give someone else an opportunity."

Five South Callaway batters totaled two hits in the game, as the Bulldogs outhit Russellville 12-5.

Helsel was 2-for-4 from the plate with three RBI and a stolen base, Peneston was 2-for-3 with three RBI and Miller batted 2-for-4 with two RBI. Cory Hanger and Cameron Richardson also had two hits in the game.

The Bulldogs are back in action Saturday, playing host to Dixon at noon and Harrisburg at 4 p.m. Russellville travels Saturday to Crane to take on the Pirates at noon and Bakersfield at 2:30 p.m.