ASHLAND - Jefferson City and Southern Boone waited until the ninth inning Tuesday to really get the ball rolling.
Locked in a tie at 1 after eight innings of play, Taylor Hopkins bounced a leadoff double into left field and his Jays teammates kept the line moving enough to pull out a 5-3 victory in summer league play.
"I think as they get more at-bats they'll find a little rhythm," Jays coach Kyle Lasley said. "I told them we can't take strikeouts and there were times in the game where we took a couple strikeouts with runners on instead of moving them over."
Dawson Schuemann, batting from the No. 2 spot, moved Hopkins to third with a bunt and the go-ahead run was scored when Hopkins beat a throw home on a Brayden Whittle grounder to third base.
Ethan Dubois added a much-needed cushion by sending a fly ball over the center fielder's head for a two-run double and Colby Thomas made it 5-1 with a sacrifice fly.
"They came out and grinded it out," Lasley said.
The Eagles got a two-out rally going in the bottom half when Bradly Smith's sharp grounder hopped past the shortstop for a two-run single, but Jeremy Parks secured the win by getting the next batter to fly out.
Parks tossed two innings, striking out three while walking one and allowing two unearned runs.
Wyatt Fischer struck out five, walked two and allowed a run on three hits in four innings, while Tanner Schmitz struck out three, walked three and only surrendered one hit in three innings of relief.
"We've got to do a better job of competing at the plate," Eagles coach Brian Ash said. "I thought we had too many pitches that we just took and we didn't even take the bat off our shoulder."
Schmitz pitched himself out of trouble in each of his three innings, catching a runner between third base and home plate before ending the fifth with a strikeout, getting a strikeout and fly out to strand two runners in scoring position in the sixth and striking out another Eagle with two on in the seventh.
"He came out there and he shook it off and he went right back to the next batter," Lasley said.
Nik Post finished with three of Southern Boone's six hits, scoring the team's first run on a wild pitch in the third after leading off with a double.
The Jays scored first in the top of the third when Schuemann tripled to the gap in right field and scored when the ball was thrown away in the infield. Schuemann and Thomas each had two hits for the Jays.
Southern Boone lefty Ethan Osborne kept the Jays in check in the first five innings, striking out nine, walking none and allowing three hits.
He added a web gem in the fourth, snagging a liner about waste high.
"Well, when the ball's hit that hard, just natural instinct is to react or otherwise you're gonna get - I think it was right at his rib," Ash said.
Rain the night before and earlier in the day forced the game to be moved from Vivion Field to Southern Boone. To avoid canceling the JV doubleheader, the teams played one nine-inning contest instead of a doubleheader.
On Thursday, the Eagles are scheduled to host Battle and Jefferson City will take its second trip to Westphalia in as many weeks to face the Fatima Comets.