2 home runs late in game help lift Webb City past Tigers

Carthage’s once bright conference championship hopes quickly faded away on Tuesday at Webb City.
   

The Cardinals, 18-5 overall and 7-1 in the Southwest Conference, connected for two home runs late in the game to come away with a 8-4 triumph during senior night at Barnes Field.
   

Carthage, 7-14 and 4-3 overall, flirted with the final SWC title for a time this season, but was unable to hold on down the stretch. After beating Webb City at Carl Lewton Stadium a little more than a week ago, Carthage dropped successive conference games on the road, where it has struggled all season.
   

Cardinals’ first-year coach Shawn Mayes dropped his first two games to Carthage this season but the third time, truly, was a charm.
   

Webb City clinched its eighth conference title in a row to close out the SWC. Both Carthage and Webb City begin play in the Central Ozark Conference this fall.
   

“Obviously, one of our goals is to win a conference championship,” Mayes said. “It’s a goal of ours at the beginning of the year, especially for these seniors who have won three of them.”
   

Both starting pitchers — Kyle Wicklund for Carthage and Brett Richardson for Webb City — weren’t given much help defensively.
   

“We had one bad inning, where it seemed one mistake compounded three or four runs,” explained Quinly. “We had a couple of chances to throw a couple of guys out at the plate … we didn’t do that, dropped a third strike and threw away a run. For a couple of innings it looked like a snowball fight.
   

“It wasn’t very pretty baseball.”
   

Mayes mirrored Quinly’s words.
   

“Defensively it wasn’t a pretty game,” Mayes said. “Especially on our part. We kicked the ball around and (Carthage) took advantage of it.”
   

Wicklund tossed five innings, yielding six runs, but only one was earned. Richardson threw a complete game for the win, giving four runs — none were earned.
   

The Cardinals scratched across two runs in the bottom half of the first, but Wicklund came back to retire the side in order during the second.
   

Wicklund, once again, looked in control in the third after going 0-2 to Patrick Drake to leadoff the inning. But Drake reached first on an infield single. Two errors cost the Tigers, resulting in an accelerated pitch count for Wicklund and three more runs for the Cardinals.
   

“The most he was going to throw was 100 pitches,” Quinly said. “At the end of the fifth he was at 98. I’m not sure how many extra pitches he had to throw, but I would guess it was somewhere in the 20s or 30s … that’s three innings of baseball.
   

“I thought Kyle threw the ball really well. We had a couple of chances to make a play behind him and didn’t get it done.”
   

Carthage’s potent offense woke up in the fourth.
   

A one-out walk to senior Stephen Poston sparked a three-run inning. Anthony Eck reached on an error, before Caleb Fierro hit an RBI single, scoring Poston. Eck scored on the second error of the inning committed by the Cardinals. Fierro came around to score on Dylan Samuelson’s one-out single to center, cutting Webb City’s lead to 5-3.
   

Webb City, though, put the game out of reach with a pair of home runs.
   

Austin Lepper led off the fifth with a solo shot to left field off of Wicklund. Drake followed with a single, but Wicklund induced a ground ball from Jordan Hickman, before striking out Jerick Swarens and Braxton Perry to end the inning.
   

Clint Spencer, who beat Pittsburg on Saturday, took over in the sixth. After picking off Darren Aggus at first base for the first out, Cameron Beaver reached on a bunt single.
   

Chance Sossamon, a right-handed senior, parked a two-run home run over the right-center field wall to give the Cardinals an 8-3 lead.
   

Two errors led to a single tally for the Tigers in the seventh, but Richardson worked didn’t allow any further damage.
   

“You have to tip your hat to Webb City,” Quinly added. “Richardson threw a great game. We had been swinging the bats pretty well.
   

“For the first couple of innings he was tough.”
    T

he Tigers come home for senior night at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday against Nevada. It will also be the final SWC match up, for any sport, played by Carthage High School.