The bats never woke up for Capital City.
The Cavaliers collected only three hits, and reached base only one time in the final five innings, in a 6-1 loss against the Hickman Kewpies in Central Missouri Activities Conference play at Capital City High School.
The second was the only inning the Cavaliers produced more than one hit Monday, and it was the lone inning they pushed a run across.
With one out, Blake Holtmeyer hit a hard grounder up the middle for a single, then stole second before Caydin Engelbrecht lined a single into left field to put runners at the corners.
Hayden Carroll then brought in the Cavaliers’ only run with a fielder’s choice grounder to second.
“We just don’t do the little things right consistently,” Capital City coach Brett Skinner said. “Not consistently enough to beat good teams that won the CMAC the last two years. You can’t give them free bases, you can’t bail them out, you can’t give them three extra runs. We’re still learning, it’s a learning process and we’re still young, but at the same time someone has to be able to step up and change that.”
On the other hand, Hickman never went 1-2-3 in an inning and had the Cavaliers working out of jams all night.
After failing to bring a run home with runners on first and second in the first, the Kewpies earned their first run in the second when Reiss Beahan singled, stole second and moved to third on an error before a Hank Cummings grounder to short brought him in.
In the third, the Kewpies added three runs on four hits and a walk.
Josh McClintock singled, moved to second on a balk and third on a wild pitch, then Cory Chostner walked before Braden Hemmer singled in McClintock.
A double play erased Chostner, but Hemmer came around to score on a Carson Shettlesworth single before Beahan collected his second hit and first RBI with a high-hopping infield single to score Shettlesworth.
Hickman added two more runs in the fifth when Hemmer led off the inning with a double and Zach Bates sent a moonshot sailing over the left-center field wall to give Hickman its final five-run advantage.
No batter reached base twice for Capital City. Noah Nicklas, Holtmeyer and Engelbrecht had all the Cavaliers’ hits and Brock Miles added a walk.
The offensive struggles continue an early-season trend for Capital City, which is yet to score five runs in a game and has scored two or less in five of eight contests thus far.
“I really would like to see our offense take that next step,” Skinner said. “We’ve gotta have a little bit better approaches in the box. We’ve really discussed it and it’s been a focus leading into spring break. I thought our ABs were a lot better down there, but we came back here and just kind of reverted back to our old habits. Watching too many fastballs in 2-0 counts, hitting is hard when you’re not aggressive in hitters’ counts. If each guy can consistently have better ABs, it’ll be contagious down the line.”
McClintock had two hits and a walk for Hickman, while Hemmer had a single a double and a walk to lead to two runs scored. Shettlesworth had a single and a double, while Beahan had two singles.
Brian Pace started on the mound for Capital City, throwing 2⅔ innings and allowing six hits and two walks to build four runs, while striking out one. Colin Flaherty pitched the next 1⅓ innings, allowing one hit, then Holtmeyer came on for two innings and allowed two runs on four hits and two walks, while striking out one. Kaiden Menning pitched the seventh, walking one and striking out two.
“Our arms are doing what they’re supposed to do,” Skinner said. “They’re coming in, they’re throwing strikes, they’re not walking a bunch of people. When our defense makes plays behind them, we’re in all these games. Our offense just isn’t clicking right now, so it makes it tougher on the defense because you have to be near perfect to stay in it. Our guys just need to have a little better mentality.”
Capital City (2-6, 0-2 CMAC) will host Farmington at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday before beginning the Jays Baseball Classic by hosting a game against Troy-Buchanan at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.