Bears take advantage of Hilgard mistakes to take 9-3 win

EDWARDSVILLE – Like any sport, mistakes are a part of baseball. Make too many of them, however, and it can wind up costing you dearly.

Belleville's Hilgards made quite a bit of mistakes Tuesday night against the Metro East Bears in an Illinois District 22 American Legion game at SIU-Edwardsville's Roy Lee Field, especially in the sixth inning as the Bears rallied from 3-0 down early to take a 9-3 win. The Bears improved to 22-5 overall on the summer, 7-2 in District 22; the Hilgards fell to 19-6, 6-1 in the district.

“They took advantage of some mistakes we made early on and scored some runs,” said Bears manager Ken Schaake.

But the Bears scored three times in the fourth, then got runners on base early in the sixth and took advantage of walks issued by Hilgard pitching to score six times to win the game.

Belleville scored three times in the first two innings, but got out of a big jam in the third where the Hilgards reached on two infield hits and were threatening to put the game away early; Bear pitcher Storm Coffman overcame the hits to keep Belleville at bay, retiring 13 of the final 14 Hilgards he faced.

“The first two innings, everything was up,” Schaake said. “They were just lacing the ball; fortunately, (Steven) Pattan made the same adjustment - he was just laying his glove almost on the ground for a target to get him to come down. After he settled in – he's a competitor out there, he gave up three runs in the first two innings but got out of a situation in the third where they got two infield hits – he got out without any further damage.”

Then came the sixth, where the Bears scored six times to get the game on ice. “You've got to throw strikes,” said Hilgard manager Jonathan Schweppe. “That's the biggest part of the game, and the simplist thing is throwing a baseball; if you can't locate on the mound of the field, you're going to lose every game.

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“We had what, nine hits, eight hits? Our bats went quiet and it was like they were satisfied with three runs today. I think our kids went into this mode where they were satisfied with three runs – I think that's all that was.”

“That was a huge inning to get six runs,” Schaake said. “Never in my wildest dreams would I thought we would score six in one inning against the pitchers they had out there, but the guys came through.”

The Hilgards grabbed an early lead, starting in the first when Buddy Gore laced a first-pitch double down the line in left and was sacrificed to third, where Jack Lanxon quickly singled Gore home for a 1-0 Belleville lead. Lanxon himself scored when Tyler Beckmann singled, Lanxon scoring on a subsequent fielding error on the play. In the second, Logan Betz scored on an error and scored on a Jake Frazier double to make it 3-0 in Belleville's favor.

Belleville threatened in the third when, after a double play, two runners reached on infield hits; Coffman then got Betz to fly out to center to end the threat and the Bears came up in the fourth and got started when Joel Quirin reached on an error and scored on Blake Vandiver single; Corey Price then singled Quirin to third to bring up Pattan, who lifted a sacrifice fly to left to score Quirin to cut the Hilgard lead to 3-2.

Singles from Tate Wargo and Will Messer scored Price to tie the game at 3-3 before the Bears took advantage of walks and errors in the sixth. “Our six-run inning started with the No. 7 hitter (Wargo),” Schaake said. “It was up and down the lineup as to where the scoring was coming from.”

Wargo got things going when he drew a leadoff walk, as did Will Messer and Konnor Loewen to get the bases loaded to bring up Kade Burns, who got ahold of a pitch and sent it into the outfield to score Wargo and Messer to put the Bears ahead for the first time. “Burns is looking fastball and he hits a line drive,” Schaake said, “so we go up two and kept tacking it on there.”

Cole Hansel then re-loaded the bases with a single and one out later, Vandiver drew a walk to bring in Loewen to extend the lead, which increased after Price hit a sacrifice fly to right to score Burns. Pattan then singled in two more runs to make it 9-3 before the Hilgards got out of the inning.

Burns was 1-for-4 with two RBIs for the Bears, with Hansel 1-for-3 with a run scored, Quirin 1-for-4 with a run scored, Vandiver 2-for-3 with a RBI and two runs scored, Price 1-for-3 with a RBI and run scored, Pattan 1-for-3 with two RBIs, Wargo 1-for-3 with a run scored, Messer 1-for-2 with a RBI and run scored and Loewen a run scored. Coffman went the distance for the win, striking out three.

The Bears are back at it at 8 p.m. today at SIUE as they host Trenton before traveling to Jerseyville for a 7 p.m. Thursday game; Metro East will be in this weekend's Firecracker Classic tournament beginning Saturday; they will be in group play in Fairview Heights, with games at 10 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday, with the semifinals and final set for Belleville Monday.

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