The Collinsville High School baseball team started the season with two comfortable wins, before hanging on for a one-run win in an odd finish to the third game.
Aaron Peskar / Photo by Roger Starkey
The weekend started Friday afternoon in Marion with Tanner Houck pitching in front of a gaggle of pro scouts. With a fastball touching the low 90s, Houck, a Mizzou signee who is drawing interest from numerous professional teams, fanned 12 and allowed one hit over five scoreless innings of work.
Collinsville (3-0) managed only one run through the first four innings, before erupting for eight in the fifth. Aaron Peskar, Daniel Franke, Dylan McEwen, Houck, Aaron Ortiz, Kyle Reeves, Nick Chance and Cole Young all scored in the inning. The Kahoks collected four hits and four walks in the fifth.
The Wildcats pushed across a run in the bottom of the sixth and final inning in one of the most unusual ways possible. Reeves pitched the inning in relief of Houck and struck out the side. However, he walked one and allowed that runner to score thanks to a combination of three wild pitches and passed balls.
Marion managed only one hit during the game. Head Coach Pete Trapp said the dominant pitching performances made things easy for the defense.
“I would like to say our defense played well, but we had 15 strikeouts out of 18 outs.”
Breese Central
Breese Central came to Fletcher Field Saturday to begin the Kahoks’ home season. The first game of the doubleheader began at 11 a.m. and the temperatures struggled to find 40 degrees throughout the game.
Peskar picked up where Houck and Reeves had left off, dealing four shutout innings at the Cougars (0-2). The senior allowed three hits and a walk, to go along with three strikeouts.
Trapp was impressed with how well Peskar, who pitched only three innings at the varsity level last year, handled his season debut.
“He doesn’t overpower people, but when he does what he’s supposed to, or does what he can, which is live down in the zone and throw strikes, he’s solid,” Trapp said.
Collinsville failed to score in the first inning, put one run on the board in the second and then scored at least two over their final four at bats. Peskar also led the way offensively, with three hits, two runs and an RBI.
Mitch Reising took his turn as the Kahoks’ pitching and hitting star in the second game of the doubleheader Saturday. After surrendering a run in the first, Reising allowed only two hits over the next four innings, while shutting down the Cougars. Reising pitched five innings, allowing four hits, one run, striking out three and hitting one batter.
With the Kahoks leading 2-1, Jordan Reichert led off the bottom of the sixth with a single. Ortiz was hit by a pitch before Nick Chance bunted Reichert and Ortiz to second and third. Trapp said the team has been working on execution of sacrifices in practice.
“When you get that stuff done, good things happen,” Trapp said.
Good things did happen for the Kahoks. Reising followed the sacrifice with a two RBI double. The Kahoks would need both runs to survive.
Young, a sophomore pitching in his first varsity game, relieved Reising and pitched an uneventful sixth, before making the game uncomfortably interesting for Kahoks fans in the top of the seventh.
The first two batters Young faced in the inning walked. The next reached on an error to load the bases before Young induced an infield popup to draw the first out. Dillon Smith coaxed a walk from Young to force home a run. Carter Troung then hit a sacrifice fly to cut the Kahoks’ lead to 4-3 with two outs.
Brent Timmons popped up a Young delivery to third baseman Alex Caputo, who promptly dropped the ball in play just in front of the bag. The runner at first base was not running on the play, so, when Caputo dropped the ball, he simply picked it up and flipped to second base for the force out to end the game.
