NEOSHO, Mo. — Neosho opened up the inaugural Roy B. Shaver Classic baseball tournament in exciting fashion, putting early crooked numbers up on the scoreboard on the way to a 13-3 win over Reeds Spring in five innings on Thursday at Roy B. Shaver Field.
“It was an exciting win,” first-year Neosho coach Bo Helsel said. “There were a lot of balls hit hard, but I don’t think we played our best game. … We preach throwing strikes and not striking out. We had too many strikeouts today, but our pitching threw a lot of strikes. … That was a big win for us for sure.”
Neosho opened with two runs in the first inning before adding four runs in the second and four more in the third inning to build an insurmountable advantage. The Wildcats (3-0) added a single tally in the fourth inning for good measure. The Wolves (1-3) scored three times in the top of the fifth, but Neosho answered back to push the lead back to 10 and end the game early.
Kael Smith earned the complete-game win in the circle for Neosho, allowing three runs, one earned, on seven hits, a walk and six strikeouts in five innings of work.
“The kid is a grinder,” Helsel said. “He is 2-0 now and he just pumps strikes. His changeup was working really well today. He was keeping that down, and he was spotting his fastball. He was throwing strikes all day long and when you do that, you have a chance to be successful.”
Dayne Smith took the loss after allowing 10 runs, five earned, on eight hits, two walks and four strikeouts in three innings of work. Blake Siege allowed three runs on four hits and two walks in 1 2/3 relief innings.
The Wildcats started the scoring in the bottom of the first when River Brill led the game off with a single before moving to second on a walk. Brill stole third later in the inning, coming around to score the game’s first run after the throw down to third ended up in the outfield. Eli Zar doubled to left-center field to plate Austin Rodriguez to push the lead to 2-0.
Neosho hung a four spot on the scoreboard in the second inning to take complete control of the game. Two consecutive errors by the Wolves allowed the first two Wildcats to reach base to start the inning. Carson Williams followed with a two-run double to left-center to push the lead to 4-0. Wyatt Shadwick added to the lead three batters later when he yanked a ball over the wall in left field for a two-run home run to make the score 6-0 to cap the inning’s scoring.
Neosho added four more runs in the bottom of the third inning to extend the lead to 10-0. After Carter Baslee scored on an error, Carter Fenske had an RBI double to left field, while Brill drove home a run after pulling a single through the right side of the infield. Rodriguez wrapped the scoring with an RBI off sacrifice fly to left field.
“In baseball, when hitters have a lead, they relax,” Helsel said of his team’s start offensively through the first three innings. “Baseball is a sport you can get so tight in, but when you get those early crooked numbers—it was huge for us.”
Zar tripled to lead off the fifth and came around to score on a sac fly from Quenton Hughes to make the score 11-0.
Reeds Spring prolonged the game after scoring three runs on five hits in the top of the fifth, but Neosho answered back with two more runs in the bottom half to end the game via run rule.
Brill, Zar and Reese Miller each had two hits to lead Neosho on offense. Fenske and Williams doubled. Zar doubled and tripled, while Miller had two triples and Shadwick homered. Shadwick, Hughes and Williams each drove in two, with Rodriguez, Brill, Miller, Fenske and Williams all scored two runs.
Jonathan Foster and Smith each had two hits and an RBI to lead Reeds Spring.
NEOSHO 4, PARKVIEW 3
Neosho ended the evening defeating Parkview in the nightcap of Day 1.
No other information was available at the time of publication.
Neosho will play in the championship game of the Roy B. Shaver Classic at 3 p.m. on Saturday.
