The Diamond Wildcats pieced together eight runs with a little timely hitting and lots of aggressive baserunning and received an absolute gem from senior pitcher Jacob Atkinson during an 8-1 win over the McAuley Catholic Warriors on Friday at Wendell Redden Stadium within the Joplin Athletic Complex.
McAuley Catholic opened the scoring with one run in the first, then Diamond scored eight unanswered with one in the second, four in the third, one in the fifth and two in the sixth.
Atkinson surrendered a RBI single to Noah Black in the first, then he allowed no more hits the final six innings and in fact retired the Warriors in order five of the final six innings.
“We were really aggressive today,” Diamond coach Dayton Shaw said. “We’ve been wanting to run and today was the first day that we’ve been really aggressive. We hit and run probably 10 times. That helps keep us out of double plays and gets guys in scoring position.
“Yeah, it all started with him (Atkinson) today. He kinda struggled this year. We talked today about just going right at people and not being so cute with off-speed pitches. Pound the zone with fastballs and you get ahead and you can try off-speed. With that different approach, he had his best outing of the year so far today by far.”
McAuley Catholic’s Rocco Bazzano-Joseph worked a walk in the first, stole second, and scored on Black’s two-out hit to left. Atkinson cut off left fielder Peyton Marbough’s throw and threw out Black at second to retire the side.
Grady Bentley led off the Diamond second with a walk, stole second, and scored on an Austin Girdner RBI double. The Warriors kept a tie score by throwing out Girdner at home on a grounder to third baseman Chase Gardner, who delivered a strike to catcher Bradley Wagner.
Atkinson led off the four-run Diamond third with an infield single, the Wildcats’ only hit of an inning during which the Warriors committed all three of their errors.
The Wildcats arguably showed their most aggressiveness on the bases in the third with three stolen bases, extra bases taken from errors, and one run scored on a wild pitch.
Brayden Clement and Girdner each finished with two RBI for the Wildcats and Bentley scored two runs on a day when the Wildcats racked up 13 stolen bases against the Warriors. Bentley had three steals, Clement, Matt Navarro and Thomas Gow two each, and Girdner, Marbough, Ty Stokes, and Daniel Weiss one each.
Atkinson allowed one run (earned) on one hit with seven strikeouts and two walks over seven innings. Atkinson finished with 87 pitches, 57 of them for strikes, while three McAuley Catholic pitchers combined to walk six Diamond batters.
Black had McAuley Catholic’s lone hit and lone RBI, while Bazzano-Joseph and Gardner worked the walks against Atkinson.
Diamond improved to 2-7 overall and the Wildcats’ 8-1 win Friday ended a four-game losing streak. The Wildcats are back in action Monday with their Southwest Conference opener against Pierce City.
McAuley Catholic dropped to 2-3 overall, meanwhile, and the Warriors have a home Ozark 7 Conference game Monday against Wheaton.
