The Wright City Wildcats continued their recent run of solid play last week.
The Wildcats won their sixth consecutive game with a 7-1 win over Hallsville Thursday.
Wright City scored one run in the bottom of the first inning to take a 1-0 lead.
After Hallsville tied the game in the top of the third inning, Wright City responded with four runs in the bottom of the third inning to take a 5-1 lead.
“We have a saying that it’s ok to take a jab but as long as we come back with a haymaker,” Wright City coach Ryan Raterman said. “And so we have to win the inning and have a haymaker and put up a crooked number to kind of get rid of their momentum. So we had to get it back on our side. We took that and we got rowdy and started playing Wright City baseball.”
Wright City added one run in each of the fifth and sixth innings to extend the lead to 7-1. Hayden Waters reached base with one out in the fifth inning on an infield single. He scored with two outs in the inning on Nick Moore’s single. Duan McRoberts hit a double with two outs in the sixth inning. He scored later in the inning on a balk.
Raterman cited the importance of adding the two insurance runs in the late innings of the game.
“I love my boys but they’re high school baseball players,” Raterman said. “And who knows, we could have had a lighting delay. We would have had to pull Kyle (Johnson) and get somebody loose for two innings. It could have been a debacle. And so putting those on late...you have to. No lead is safe.”
Johnson pitched into the sixth inning for Wright City. He pitched 5 2/3 innings and allowed one run. He allowed two hits and one walk. He struck out nine Hallsville batters.
Chris Russell finished the game on the mound for the Wildcats. He pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings.
After winning their past five games by a combined score of 70-4, Wright City needed a more competitive baseball game, Raterman said. Raterman noted the Wildcats have three conference games on the schedule this week. They faced Bowling Green Tuesday and are scheduled to face Clopton and Montgomery County Thursday and Saturday.
“We needed to see a competitive baseball game and compete before we headed into a cutthroat situation,”Raterman said. “We needed to have this feel.”