As Warrenton senior Colin DiSilvester stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the fifth inning, the stage was set. With the bases loaded, an 8-0 lead and a county rival on the line, DiSilvester waited for his pitch.

When the fastball came, he didn’t miss.

DiSilvester ripped a line drive into the right infield, bringing home both Keegan Lehmkuhl and Keegan Mellegaard to secure the 10-0 win — and end the game early via mercy rule. 

“I saw that he was throwing a lot of fastballs, so I was waiting until I got a fastball to just hit it the other way,” DiSilvester said. 

DiSilvester’s teammates celebrated the walk-off in classic fashion with an ice-cold water jug over his head. 

“Yeah, I’m ready to go home,” DiSilvester said after a 12-hour day at the ballfield. “I’m cold from the water.” 

Fittingly, DiSilvester also kicked off the explosive fifth inning by hitting a triple, contributing to a dominant stretch where the Warriors scored seven of their 10 runs. 

The win was especially sweet for DiSilvester, who had a frustrating outing earlier in the day against Fort Zumwalt East. 

“I don’t think he was happy with his at-bats [in the Fort Zumwalt East game], so it was good to see him come around in this game. He had that base hit for a walk-off and he had a triple earlier in the game, so I was glad he turned his day around,” Warrenton coach Eric Burle said. 

Burle also highlighted solid pitching performances from Mason Thompson and Austin Haas. Thompson struck out six over four innings, while Haas pitched the final inning with one strikeout.

“[Thompson] came in today and gave us four really good innings and then [Haas] came in for one inning – our pitching overall was pretty good,” Burle said. 

Wright City coach Cody Bair said there was a notable difference of improvement in his team’s second matchup against the Warriors. Earlier this season, Wright City lost 16-1. 

“We did a better job at keeping them off balance and [Carter] Pierson pitched a nice game,” he said. “We just ran into too many freebies and didn’t put across the runs when we had the chance to put pressure on them. We just had a rough inning that snowballed on us.” 

Earlier that day, Warrenton and Wright City faced Fort Zumwalt East. Warrenton lost 7-6 in a 16-inning marathon, while Wright City fell 13-9 after an early 10-run deficit. Despite the pair of losses, Bair saw positives in his young team. 

“It was something that I haven’t really experienced as a coach or player, but we tried to stay as loose as possible and we went through dynamics and things like that,” Bair said. “We’re a young team but I thought we put some nice bats together, especially in that first game.” 

The Wildcats trailed the Lions 10-0 in the top of the second. They rallied to get within 11-7 after the fifth inning and scored two additional runs in the sixth inning. 

“We maintained focus and tried to win every single pitch,” Bair said, “From there, we chipped away and kept grinding and played for each other.” 

The Warriors went head-to-head with the Lions in a five hour game. Both teams are in the same district this year. 

“We were down a couple times and came back in late innings and were able to tie it up, but we didn’t have enough outs in the end,” Burle said. “I can’t complain because I thought the kids fought hard and gave themselves a chance to win.” 

The Warriors improved to 8-4 with the win over Wright City. The Wildcats dropped to 4-7 with the loss to Warrenton.