By Dennis Bowling
Peotone baseball coach Keith Coppens has a plethora of talented young players. The Blue Devils junior Hunter Becker did very well at the plate. The Blue Devils sophomore Joe Hasse did a great job on the mound. That combination just wasn’t enough for a Peotone win on March 6.
Becker, a shortstop, with exceptional batting abilities, had two hits and one RBI. Hasse, a crafty righthanded hurler, in four innings of work, allowed six hits and fanned six batters. St. Anne outslugged Peotone 8-6 in a nonconference contest in Peotone.
Blue Devils coach Coppens felt that Becker and Hasse each had respectable outings against the Cardinals.
“Hunter played well,” said Coppens “He had two hits and a home run. We played very well. We are getting better with each game that we play.”
“Joe had a good outing,” said Coppens “We made some fielding errors. We need to play some better defense.”
In the first inning, St. Anne scored one run. In the bottom of the first inning, the Blue Devils answered with one run. Peotone Noah Cuthbertson walked and went to second base on a Cardinal wild pitch. The Blue Devils Jake Eaheart smashed a single to right field, on the play, Cuthbertson scored to tie the game at 1-all.
St. Anne scored four runs in the second inning. They added one run in the third frame for a 6-1 lead. Peotone rallied scoring one run in the third inning to make it 6-2.
After one out in the third inning, Becker smashed a homerun to left field for the second run. Peotone scored one run in the sixth frame to make it 6-3. A Becker infield groundout drove in Hasse for that third run.
“I put a good swing on the ball,” said Becker. “We just need to play more games. That should help us gain more experience. We need a full effort on every pitch.”
“Joe pitched a phenomenal game,” he said. “We need to field the ball better.”
In the top of the seventh inning, St. Anne scored two runs to make it 8-3. In the bottom of the seventh frame, Peotone scored three runs to cut the Cardinal lead to 8-6. A Becker two run single was the highlight of the rally.
After four innings, Hasse was replaced by pitcher Josh Barta. With the bat, Hasse had three hits.
“I had a good breaking ball,” said Hasse. “My fastball was working well. Hunter was able to pick out some good pitches. He put the bat on the ball too.”
The Blue Devils junior Chris Pagliarulo had two hits.