Cougars Top St. Anthony
For Regional Title
For the second straight year, and four out of the last five, the Cougars have brought
home a regional championship. The 5-1 victory came at the expense of the Effingham St. Anthony Bulldogs and sends them into
Thursday's sectional semifinal against Robinson at Robinson.
Pitching and defense is usually a key ingredient for winning championships and the Cougars used
plenty of it on Monday as Spencer Patton pitched a complete game masterpiece and the defense played error-free baseball.
Patton was in command from the get-go with phenominal control of his pitches and a display
of uncanny poise as he allowed only four hits on eight strikeouts and two walks.
The only run he surrendered came in the second on a ball that was misplayed in the outfield and
a two-out double by the Bulldog's eighth-place hitter.
From there on, he dominated the opposing hitters with overpowering fastballs and nasty curveballs
and on several occasions, baffled them with his deceptive changeup.
After the Bulldogs took the one-run lead in the second, the Cougar hitters responded by scoring
three of their own in the bottom half of the inning.
With the bases loaded and two outs, Matt Hicks rapped a sharp single up the middle to score the
first two runs and after an intentional pass to Brian Wodtka to reload the bases, Brock Adams singled between third and short
to score another. Hicks was gunned down at the plate on a perfect throw from the Bulldog's leftfielder for the final out.
The Cougars tacked on another run in the fifth when Patton launched a solo home run over the
fence in center to up the lead to 4-1.
They scored their final run in the sixth when Adams singled, Nick Jones walked, and Patton's
short fly ball to left landed between three St. Anthony defenders.
After Patton nailed it down in the seventh with a 1-2-3 inning, the Cougars celebrated
on the field with handshakes, hugs, lots of pictures, and talk of their next game at the sectional.
To reach the championship, the Cougars had to first get by the Brownstown Bombers in game one
on Saturday and they accomplished the feat with a 9-0 shutout victory.
Tyler Burns was the winning pitcher in this one as he went the distance allowing 3 hits on 11
strikouts and 3 walks.
The Cougars scored early and often as they pushed across three runs in the first and two in the
second. Highlighting the uprising was RBI doubles from Jones and Wodtka, an RBI single by Burns, and three Bomber errors.
To close out the scoring, the Cougars tallied one more in the fifth and three in the sixth. The
three-run outburst came at the expense of Brownstown's highly touted pitcher, Aaron Lovett as he walked Yates and Burns to
setup RBI singles by Hicks and Adams.
It's now on to the sectional semifinals and the Cougars will tackle the #9 seeded Robinson Maroons,
who knocked off the #3 seeded Newton Eagles in their regional championship game. The game will be played at Robinson's city
park on Thursday at approximately 5:00 PM after Teutopolis and Olney play their makeup game which starts at 3:00.
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