NEOSHO, Mo. — Tuesday’s home game against the Nixa Eagles, sixth-ranked in Class 6 and one of the best teams in the Central Ozark Conference and Class 6 District 6, started out promisingly for their conference and district rival Neosho Wildcats.
Neosho senior pitcher Kael Smith retired Nixa in order in the top of the first and senior right fielder Eli Zar started the bottom half with a single to center for the game’s first hit.
Senior center fielder Wyatt Shadwick reached on a hit-by-pitch, but fellow senior Austin Rodriguez lined into a double play to Nixa second baseman Collin Ussery to end the inning and Nixa junior catcher Jack Edwards slugged a leadoff double to start a four-run second for the Eagles on their way to a 6-1 win over the Wildcats at Roy B. Shaver Field within the Marion Sports Complex.
“They can hit,” Neosho coach Bo Helsel said. “We just saw them this past weekend and they hit us around quite a bit. We knew they were going to hit, and one thing we didn’t do on the mound was … we had too many walks today. When you have a team that can hit that well, you give them too many walks, a couple here and there, they drive those runs in. That was what doomed us today.
“We had our chances. In the first inning, we got doubled up. That happens, especially when the second baseman is coming to the bag. You’re probably getting doubled up even if you go straight back, but that’s the game sometimes. I thought the bats were much better today than they’ve been in other conference games, so that’s something to build on that’s for sure.”
The Eagles scored their four in the second behind a Broden Mabe RBI single, a Wyatt Vincent sacrifice fly, and bases loaded walks by Ussery and Rylan Michel. Smith gave three of the Wildcats’ seven walks in that second that saw Nixa produce four runs on four hits and no errors with three runners left behind.
Nixa added on two in the fourth with a Michel RBI double and a Edwards RBI single. Ussery sparked the rally and scored the first run of the fourth after his leadoff double.
Tanner Grant started the Nixa third with a triple, but he got caught and captured in a rundown between third and home. Reese Dirnberger reached second on a fielder’s choice and by taking advantage of Grant’s pickle on the bases, but Smith induced a fly ball for the second out and struck out Mabe to retire the side and preserve the 4-0 deficit.
Neosho relievers Colton Southern and Bostyn Patterson pitched three scoreless innings of relief, with the junior Southern working through four walks in his two innings and the sophomore Patterson striking out Gehrig Eoff, Mabe, and Ussery in order and down swinging.
“Colton came in and threw really well,” Helsel said. “I knew the change of speeds between Kael and Colton was hopefully going to mess with them and it did. He threw strikes and Bostyn came in and struck out the side in the seventh. That’s nice to have, because both those kids will be back next year so hopefully, they can get a little confidence in their pitching abilities playing against a really good team. They shut (Nixa) down for three innings, kept us in the game, and gave us a shot to get back in it. We just couldn’t quite it done with the bats.”
Southern and especially Patterson stepped up for the Wildcats during their first game following a week where they played six games in five days.
“I think it was his second varsity outing,” Helsel said of Patterson. “It’s been a week or so. He’s been one of our JV starters, and sometimes when you have a lot of games over the weekend, you end up running a lot of guys that typically would throw varsity out there on the weekend, so we didn’t have a lot of guys available with pitch counts.
“I knew that with our young guys, they’re solid. We’re going to be fine next year with pitching, because we’ve got guys who can throw it. I knew this would be a good opportunity for them, they kept us in the game, and they did their jobs.”
The Wildcats scored their only run in the fifth when River Brill reached on a single, stole second and scored on Southern’s single to center.
Zar led the Wildcats with a pair of hits against Nixa starter Jackson Gamble, who struck out Neosho hitters to end five of the seven innings Tuesday.
Neosho dropped to 13-10 overall and 1-5 COC, and the Wildcats return home Thursday for a conference game against Branson.
“Definitely a winnable game, but we’ve learned this year and we learned it last year that when you play in the COC, you have to come in and compete every day that you play a COC team,” Helsel said. “Nothing’s handed to you, they don’t make a lot of errors behind them, their pitchers are solid, and so we’re going to have to come and play well to get a win. I think it is a game we can get, I think the kids feel that, and hopefully we can use the good things that we did today and build on that for Thursday.”
