Cape Post 63 senior legion baseball fails to find an answer in zone tournament loss to Festus
It was a day Cape Girardeau Ford and Sons Post 63 Senior Legion baseball didn't look much like a district champion.
Mistakes on the mound and in the field gave Festus Post 253 too many opportunities, and Cape had no answers offensively as it fell 9-1 in a quarterfinal of the Zone 4 Tournament on Wednesday at Whitey Herzog Field in Jackson, Missouri.
"We didn't show up today. That's just the bottom line," Cape coach Josh Meyer said. "As baseball players, as competitors, we just didn't show up. I think we're a lot better than we showed. So that's disappointing."
Post 63 pitchers walked nine batters while striking out just one, threw four wild pitches and hit a batter.
Meanwhile, Cape (21-11) managed just five hits, including only two through the first six innings.
"Any time you give a team like that extra chances it's going to be hard," Meyer said. "We gave them extra chances, like you said, with errors, with walks. Extra opportunities like that, you're going to have to hit your way out, and we weren't doing that today."
Andrew Douglas was impressive on the mound for Festus (24-9), throwing a complete game and allowing just one run while striking out eight and walking one.
Cape finally got to him in the top of the eighth inning, when Ben Womack hit a leadoff single and went station to station before scoring on a ground out. But by then it was too late, and the run was little more than a scratch on Douglas' armor.
"I was impressed with his poise most," Meyer said of Douglas. "He was just a really polished pitcher. He made very good pitches against us. He didn't have anything overpowering, but he made very quality pitches and we had trouble with them."
Festus went up 3-0 in the second inning, getting a leadoff double from Cameron Beck, who later scored on a wild pitch, and a two-out, two-run single by Jaden Courtois (both scoring runners reached base on walks).
That was enough for Post 253, which just kept building its cushion.
Blain Prater was 2-for-3 with two RBIs and a run scored for Festus, while Sean McDowell went 2-for-5 and Zac Meyer was 1-for-4 with two RBIs and a sacrifice fly.
Kyle Fitzgerald got the start and the loss for Cape, allowing five runs -- four earned -- on four hits in 3 1/3 innings; he struck out one and walked six. Brock Baugher threw 4 2/3 innings in relief, allowing four runs -- three earned -- on four hits with three walks.
Garrett Siebert was 2-for-4 to lead Post 63.
Cape will now face Ste. Genevieve in an elimination game today at 4 p.m.
Despite the performance and the result, Post 63's Meyer is maintaining a positive outlook. He was head coach of the Cape Girardeau junior legion squad that lost its zone opener a year ago before making a run to the championship game.
"The thing about it is, they need to know that they can win, because they can," Meyer said. "Last year we took the juniors to zone and we lost the first game and we clawed our way back. There's nothing in the rules saying if you lose the first game you can't win the tournament. We just made it hard on ourselves."
The hole was too deep for Post 63 on Wednesday.
After Festus initially took the lead, it tacked on an unearned run in the bottom of the third, with Collin Mann leading off the inning by reaching on an error, moving to third on a wild pitch and then scoring on a Zac Meyer single.
Post 253 then made it 5-0 in the fourth, as three straight walks chased Fitzgerald from the game before Meyer hit a sacrifice fly to left field to plate a runner.
Festus began the fifth inning with back-to-back hits and a walk, loading the bases before Jaden Courtois was plunked by a pitch on a 1-2 count to drive in a run. Then Prater hit a sac fly to center to make things 7-0.
A walk, a hit and an error made it 9-0 after seven innings.
In other bad news for Cape, first baseman Cooper Crosnoe injured his finger while diving back toward first base on a double-play ball in the top of the first inning. He did not return to the game, and his status moving forward was a question mark Wednesday night. Coach Meyer said it appears to be either a dislocation or a broken finger.
Cape | 000 | 000 | 010 | -- | 1 | 5 | 3 |
Festus | 031 | 120 | 20x | -- | 9 | 8 | 2 |
WP -- Andrew Douglas. LP -- Kyle Fitzgerald. 2B -- Cameron Beck (F), Sean McDowell (F). 3B -- Joe Baker (C), Blain Prater (F). Multiple hits -- Cape: Garrett Siebert 2-4; Festus: Prater 2-3, McDowell 2-5.
Related links
- Photos from the game (07/19/17)