Following the Jackson baseball team’s 15-2 road win over crosstown rival Cape Central last week on Tuesday, the Indians traveled to Farmington Friday morning for a double header.
Jackson faced Class 5 District 1 opponent Farmington in the first game with Class 5 District 2 Seckman to follow.
Coming into the district matchup against the Knights, Jackson was 2-0 in district play with the team’s win over Cape Central and Northwest on April 3 that was also on the road.
Starting the game on the mound for the Indians against Farmington was senior Jarrett Newell, who threw a shutout in his 5.1 innings pitch while allowing seven hits and had two strike outs.
“[Newell] has been fantastic against Farmington in the past — it’s kind of the thing he puts his hat on,” Head Coach Bryan Austin said. “I think he’s now up to 6-0 against Farmington in his career, so he’s done a fantastic job [pitching against them].”
Jackson scored six of its nine runs in the first four innings to take the early lead. Junior Cole Welker went 2-for-3 by having a single and a double for two RBIs.
Seniors Braeden Dobbs and Will Winingar tied for the the game-high in hits with three a piece, but Winingar managed to tie Welker for the team-high in RBIs with two in the game.
“Our goal was to score runs first — be the first team that scores and make sure we have a big inning, which is three or more runs, and we were able to do that,” Coach Austin said. “When we do that early on, it really relaxes the defense and the pitcher, and [Newell] did a fantastic job on the mound.”
Senior Drew Brown came in relief for Newell at the mound in the sixth inning, but allowed Farmington’s only two runs in the game with four walks.
Jackson advanced to 3-0 in district play by defeating the Knights 9-2, and the Indians had around 45 minutes rest before facing Seckman.
Welker was the starting pitcher for the game against the Jaguars and threw a hitless first inning with three straight outs.
The Indians scored their first run off a wild pitch after Welker was able to steal home from third base, which he advanced to after senior Colten Weber hit a fly ball into center field for an out.
The second inning did not fair so well for Welker since he walked four batters while only allowing one hit with three batters reaching base via error.
Seckman scored four runs in the second, and after throwing his fourth walk to load the bases with two outs, Welker was replaced by Dobbs.
Dobbs was able to get the next batter out on a fly ball caught by sophomore Landon Hahn.
Jackson failed to score a run in the next three innings after taking a 1-0 lead over the Jaguars, which allowed Seckman to take a 7-1 lead after the third inning.
The Indians had three more errors in the third, and Dobbs even walked a batter by hitting him with a pitch.
“Early on I feel like we spotted them seven [runs], but what I did like to see is our kids compete the entire game,” Coach Austin said. “They hit the baseball extremely well — even the outs we made were very loud outs whether they were one way or another its a double in the gap.
“So, I thought we did a lot of great things. We stayed in tune in the game because [Seckman] could have had some options there and folded when we weren’t playing well, and we were down 8-1.”
Both teams went scoreless in the fourth inning, and Seckman added its eighth run on a sacrifice fly in the fifth.
In the bottom of the fifth, Jackson scored five runs off two hits, one sacrifice fly and one wild pitch to get within two runs of Seckman at 8-6.
Dobbs drove two runners in off a double in the inning after Winingar, who got on base after an error, scored on a wild pitch when Seckman brought in its relief pitcher.
In the top of the sixth inning, Dobbs allowed one runner on base with another getting to first base off an error.
Dobbs retired three straight batters with two men on and no outs to end the inning.
Jackson tied the game in the sixth after junior Justice Crosnoe drove in junior Bo Goddard on a line-drive single.
“I thought Braeden did a great job coming in there — he threw the ball very well and had great velocity today,” Coach Austin said. “I thought the best part was running out a sophomore in the seventh inning in Tyler Martin and him just toeing the rubber and letting it come.”
Martin retired three-straight Seckman batters in the seventh inning to allow for Jackson to make a comeback.
Two men got on base for Jackson with only one out when Welker hit a line drive for a single to left field for Brown to score the final run of the game for a 9-8 comeback victory.
Entering this week, Jackson has a total of five games with another district game in the mix on Thursday at Poplar Bluff (11-5).
