Neosho out slugs Tigers in windy conditions

The final Southwest Conference game in any sport hosted at Neosho ended with a win for the Black-and-Gold Thursday night.

The Wildcat baseball team, backed by the arm and bat of sophomore Kyle Dickens, rallied to pull out a 13-9 victory over the visiting Carthage Tigers on a windy and warm Thursday at Roy B. Shaver Stadium in Southwest Conference action.
   

Dickens hit three home runs on the day, including a pair of two-run homers, and picked up the win on the mound for the Wildcats, who capped off their conference home schedule.

"I told the radio guy (Glenn) before the game that I thought it could be 18-15 or 20-15, something like that," said Carthage coach Scott Quinly. "They had 10 of their 13 runs off home runs, but we played in the same park. The wind played a part and it was unreal for pitching. We made a great two-strike pitch and they get it up and it goes out. That is a flyball anywhere else."

The win for Neosho likely derails the Southwest Conference hopes for Carthage, which entered the game tied for first place in the SWC with Webb City. Now, with two losses, the Tigers have to win out against the eight-time defending conference champions Webb City and Nevada and hope for a split of the title.

The Tigers (6-13 overall, 4-2 in SWC) jumped out to a 6-0 lead after two innings of play. Carthage scored four runs in the first inning on only one hit, taking advance of three walks, two batters getting hit by a pitch and a very costly error on Nesoho’s part. With two outs and two runners on a misplayed flyball hit by Caleb Fierro led to two runs for Carthage. Tadd Wagner had an RBI single and a wild pitch led to another run.

The Tigers left the bases full when Dickens, coming on it relief, got a pop fly to end the inning.

In the second inning, Stephen Poston singled and scored on Anthony Eck’s second home run of the year, making it 6-0.

In the third inning, Austin Paul gave the Wildcats (7-12, 2-4) the lead when he hit a grand slam to the gap in left-center field.

The lead, however, was brief.

The Tigers scored three runs, all off homers, in the fourth inning. Poston hit a solo homer to left field to tie the game at 7-7. After a bloop double by Fierro, Kyle Wicklund hit a two-run homer to center field, making it 9-7.

"We hit several balls hard,” said Quinly. “I think the three hardest hits balls today were outs, but that is just baseball."

Dickens hit a solo home run to left field to cap the scoring at 13-9.

The Tigers had a couple of chances late, but couldn’t connect on a big hit. In the fifth inning, Dalton Cossey had a single to right field that moved Beau Tommey to third base with two outs, but on the throw home, Cossey attempted to take second and was thrown out by Koty Dowell.

In the seventh inning, Tommey and Cossey reached base off Westfield with two outs and the heart of the order coming up for the Tigers. However, Westfield got a popfly to end the game.