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The St. James Trojan’s were the number 3 seed in the Belleville Diocese Baseball playoffs behind #1 seed St. Teresa and #2 seed Queen of Peace, but that didn’t deter the Trojan’s spirit. On Saturday St. James beat Queen of Peace to advance to the championship game. And in a back and forth game against the St. Teresa Tigers the Trojan’s came out on top by the score of 7 – 5 in seven innings. It was an extremely exciting game with parents & fans on both sides sitting at the end of their seats, in what can be called a nail biter.
The Tigers took a 1 run lead early in the game, and kept that lead until the third inning. The Trojans had bases loaded with 1 out with Kyle Sweeney at bat, he hit into a fielder choice forcing the runner out at second base, the tying run scores. With two outs coach Kossina played aggressive ball sending the runner on 3rd on a pass ball for the out. In the bottom of the third the Tigers could only muster a one out double with consecutive ground outs to the shortstop Kyle Sweeney. The score remained tied 1-1.
The Trojan’s went down one, two three in the fourth inning with Zack Skaer flying out to center field, and Jordan McFarland & Richie Donald striking out. The Tigers plated 2 more runs in the bottom of the fourth inning that came on an error, pop single to left and a base clearing triple to deep centerfield. The runner was stranded on 3rd after a strikeout and a groundout to short. The score was 3-1 in favor of St. Teresa.
The fifth inning proved to be the Trojans biggest scoring inning of the game, plating 4 runs to take the lead. The lead-off batter struck out but made it to the base safely by a passed ball. There was a pick-off attempt at first base that failed, advancing the runner to second base. The next batter walked leaving runners on 1st & 2nd with no one out. Cody Klotz laid down a perfect bunt between the pitcher and the third baseman which loaded the bases with nobody out. The next batter popped out, and then with a pass ball the runner at third tried to score, but was called out. It looked like from my vantage point that the runner slid under the tag, but the ball was clearly there on time. Now there were two outs with runners on 2nd & 3rd and Cal Kossina walked to load the bases once again. Kyle Sweeney was hit by the pitch scoring one run. Cody Klotz advanced to first base on a pass ball strikeout, a second run then scored. Then Zack Skaer hit a two run double making the score 5-3. Jordan McFarland hit into a ground out for the third out. The Trojan’s now led 5-3 in the top of the fifth inning.
The Tigers answered back with one run in their bottom half of the fifth inning. It came on an error in centerfield, sacrifice bunt moving the runner over to second base with one out. A ground out moves the runner over to third and a single to right field scored one run, followed by a groundout to short. The score now 5-4 in favor of St. James with five innings completed.
In the 6th inning the Trojan’s went down one, two, three for the second time in the game. Richie Donald grounded out, Luke Glaeser popped out to centerfield, and the pitcher Ben Hankhammer struck out. For the bottom of the 6th inning coach Kossina brought in right hander Zack Skaer to face the Tigers. Zack got the first batter to groundout to second baseman Richie Donald, then he offered up deep triple to centerfield and a sacrifice fly scored the tying run. Unscathed by the run Zack settled down and struck out the next batter for the third out. The game is now tied once again 5-5 going into the final 7th inning.
The Trojan’s first two batters, Cody Klotz & Sam Haudrich grounded out and it began to look like a set-up of a possible 7 inning loss, or at the hope of Trojan fans, extra innings. Third batter of the inning Cal Kossina walked, and then Kyle Sweeney stepped to the plate and blasted a game winning homerun to deep right centerfield that went all the way to the fence, plating two runs to take the lead 7-5 going into the bottom of the 7th inning.
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