Mattoon outlasted Teutopolis in high school baseball action, 11-6 Thursday afternoon.
Each team had ample opportunities throughout the game. The Green Wave took a 1-0 lead after the first inning. Mattoon tacked on three more runs in the second. Tucker Rappe led off with a single. Rayme Hamilton followed suit, Garrette Branson and Will Courtney each drew a walk. A series of wild pitches enabled the Green Wave runners to scoot around the bases and build a 4-0 lead after two innings.
T-Town answered back in the third. A one-out walk to Devin Smith preceded a two-run homer by Austin Johnson. The Wooden Shoes had sliced the lead to 4-2. Mattoon cushioned its margin with a 4-run fourth. Trey Skocy, Branson, and Courtney all singled to start the inning and the bases were loaded with nobody out. However, after two fly outs to right field (one of which being a foul ball) weren’t deep enough to score the runner from third, the Wooden Shoes were about to wiggle off the hook. Alex Lilly came up and worked a bases loaded walk, which forced in Skocy and the lead was 5-2. Tucker Rappe then lined a ball into the left-center field gap that cleared the bases. The Green Wave lead stood at 8-2 after four. Rappe finished the game 4-4 with four singles, three runs batted in, and a run scored. He also pitched 2 1/3 innings of relief.
The lead was sliced to 8-5 by T-Town in the fifth inning. Lane Belleville’s two-run triple to right-center scored John Kreke and Kyle Smith, who had both singled with two outs. Mattoon answered again in the bottom of the fifth, scoring three times on four hits. The Green Wave built the lead to 11-5, but left the bases loaded for the second time in the game. In fact, Mattoon stranded 14 runners on base in the game, but they also scored 11 times on 14 base hits.
The Shoes got a run back in the sixth to make it 11-6, but they could get no closer. T-Town finished with 6 runs, 11 hits, and 9 runners stranded.
Mattoon is back in action Saturday at 10am vs. Charleston. That baseball game can be heard on Classic Rock 92.1 The Axe. Meanwhile, on 101.3 WMCI Saturday morning, it will be Mattoon vs. Charleston in softball action, also at 10am.
