Alton pitcher tames Edwardsville Tigers as Redbirds take advantage of miscues

Not often does a team collect only two hits while striking out 14 times and still find a way into the win column, but the Alton Redbirds conjured up a little baseball magic to get the job done on Tuesday.

Not only that, the Redbirds did it against the area’s top-ranked team as they hung a 4-1 Southwestern Conference defeat on the Edwardsville Tigers.

Wielding the biggest hammer was Alton senior right-hander Jacob St. Peters (2-0), who allowed only five hits while striking out 10. Many of those came on a late-breaking slider that the normally offensively solid Tigers had trouble with all afternoon.

The loss ended an 18-game conference winning streak by defending SWC champ Edwardsville dating back to a 6-4 loss to O’Fallon on May 19, 2014. The Tigers beat Alton three times last season, including in the regional final.

Key performer

“I was feeling good out on the mound,” said St. Peters, who survived his toughest jam when he struck out Tyler Stamer and Cole Hansel looking in the fourth with runners at second and third and only one out. “All my stuff was working for me. I was only supposed to throw two innings and I ended up throwing the whole game, it’s just ironic.

“After the second inning, (Coach) told me go go out again and after that he said ‘batter to batter, you never know when you’re going to get pulled, just do your best. That’s what I did.”

Three of Alton’s four runs were unearned, with five Edwardsville errors contributing to the total. Infield throwing errors led to three of the four runs and the fourth scored on two wild pitches.

“We got just enough,” said Alton coach Todd Haug, whose 7-3 team improved to 2-1 in SWC play. “You make the most of what you have and today playing some Iron Curtain defense, getting good defense, playing good ‘D’ behind him, I liked our chances.

“We got a good senior effort on the mound today.”

Edwardsville coach Tim Funkhouser’s club dropped to 10-3 overall and 2-1 in conference play. Funkhouser lamented his team’s lack of aggression at the plate and inability to execute defensively.

“With two strikes we struck out looking a ton and also had some flailing swings on some breaking pitches,” said Funkhouser, whose team was second in the state in the latest PrepBaseballReport.com rankings. “That just shows lack of a approach. We’ll fight and get better at that and until we do so we’ll have some similar results.

“Their guy did really well on the mound, we didn’t play well in the field and we didn’t have good at-bats.”

It was a tough luck day for Edwardsville senior right-hander Jake Garella. Garella allowed only two hits and struck out 14 in five innings, but was credited with the loss.

“It’s a tough day to get a feel for your breaking pitch and he was able to overcome that,” Funkhouser said of the University of Mobile recruit. “The way he pitched, we needed to do better on our end - on the offensive end and the defensive end.

“Right now we’re not playing the game that well. We don’t think the game that well, we don’t execute the game that well, obviously, and we’re not making adjustments within the game.”

Key sequence

Alton got a run in the second when Aaron Bonnell singled and scored from second when third baseman Stamer threw wildly to first on a bunt by Alton’s Noah Rathgeb.

The Redbirds got two more in the fifth after Ryan Boyd bunted Sam Ballard and Rathgeb to second and third. Derrick Allen hit a ground ball to second, but the throw home by Joel Quirin sailed wide and both runners came around to score.

Edwardsville’s best early chance against St. Peters came in the fourth. Garella and Quirin singled and were at second and third with one out, but St. Peters quickly gathered himself and struck out Stamer and Hansel looking to end the threat.

“I think that’s what shut the door,” St. Peters said. “We were all up after that. When they went down we were just ready to win. They’re our rivals, it feels good to beat them. Last year we didn’t have too much luck with that and now we’re ready.

“We’re feeling good.”

The Tigers? Not so much.

“Just bad at-bats. Their pitcher executed, so you credit him, but we look at our end a lot on what we needed to do,” Funkhouser said. “We obviously need to get better at playing the game ... two strikeouts there and it was a 1-0 game at the time, wasn’t it?

“Disappointing at-bats (were) kind of a theme for us — and not making plays.”

After Alton tacked on another run in the sixth against reliever Andrew Yancik to make it 4-0, the Tigers threatened in the bottom of the inning. Collin Clayton doubled and went to third on Garella’s second hit of the day before scoring on a sacrifice fly by Quirin.

St. Peters struck out Stamer to escape the threat and retired the side in order in the seventh.

“Not that we don’t the resources to do it consistently, but we put in a little bit of extra time scouting and getting a good read on them,” Haug said. “We felt had a very, very good game plan going into this ballgame. (St. Peters) was consistenlty pitching ahead.

“He had multiple pitches going and credit to him — and credit to the defense behind him.”

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 9:41 PM with the headline "Alton pitcher tames Edwardsville Tigers as Redbirds take advantage of miscues."