The Gehlen Catholic baseball team kept their perfect War Eagle Conference record alive with a 6-1 win over Class 1A top-15 MMCRU in Marcus on Thursday night.
The night started off rough for the Jays who left the bases loaded in the top of the first and gave up a run to the only baserunner MMCRU had in the bottom of the first. Gehlen Catholic head coach Loi Kraft says his guys had to respond to that tough start, and they did that.
The Jays picked that run back up in the third inning, and the bats fully woke up a few innings later. Gehlen scored four runs in the sixth to change the outlook and another run for good measure in the seventh. Coach Kraft says the guys communicated well to talk about what was coming in their at-bats.
In spite of those last couple of innings, Eli Schlenger tossed five strong one-run innings to keep the Gehlen offense at bay. MMCRU head coach Cam Kuchel says going through Gehlen’s offense that many times is tough to do.
While all of this was going on, Alex Peters was dealing and putting down Royals left and right. After allowing the first run to score in the first inning, Peters threw six strong two-hit shutout innings to finish the complete game. Coach Kraft says he gets tougher to hit off as the game goes along.
MMCRU’s offense was held in check even while having an aggressive approach. Coach Kuchel says seeing a pitcher like Peters is good for his team who will need to face that caliber of pitching to make a deep postseason run.
The Royals fall to 11-3 overall and 5-3 in the War Eagle Conference. Gehlen Catholic improves their league record to 6-0 while also being 12-8 overall. The Jays are in action right away against another top team in the state opening the Spalding Tournament against No. 10 Don Bosco. Coach Kraft says this game was a good preparation for what his team will see this weekend.
Gehlen starts their Spalding Tournament run tonight at 7:00 PM in a game you can hear on KLEM Radio.
