The Jackson Indians started out like gangbusters over the weekend in the annual Troy Tourney, with wins over Troy, Fort Zumwalt North and Hannibal to open the season in style, but they stumbled a bit after that. Francis Howell got the best of them in the next game and they would have to settle for playing CBC in the third place match. That one didn’t go so well either, and the Tribe ended up finishing fourth in the tournament.
They opened the tourney against the host team and promptly worked over the Trojans with an 8-2 victory. The Indians put up three in the first, one in the second and one in the third, before icing the cake in the fifth inning with three more.
Caden Bogenpohl got the win after firing three innings of two-run ball and fanned five against three walks. He also went 1-for-2 at the dish with an RBI, a pair of walks and two steals. Carson McDaniel got the save with 3.2 shutout innings and struck out five as well.
Dylan Hayman and Baden Hackworth provided the bulk of the offense with three and two RBI, respectively, but Landon Wakins had himself a day as well. He was the only player to record multiple hits with his 2-for-4 effort, and he swiped three of the team’s eight bags on the day.
That win pitted the Indians against Fort Zumwalt North, and they gave the Panthers all they could handle with a 10-0 drubbing. A six-run second inning pretty much sealed the deal right out of the gate, as Jackson took advantage of several Zumwalt errors. Bogenpohl had a big two-run single in the inning as well.
The Indians put up three more in the fourth and then a final tally in the fifth to trigger the mercy rule, but that wasn’t the biggest story of this game. One of Jackson’s Aces JP Sauer pitched a perfect (albeit abbreviated) game, going five innings with seven Ks and not allowing a runner to reach base. Fifteen up and 15 down. It was quite the performance.
Bogenpohl led the team with three RBI and three stolen bases as the Indians ran wild again with nine total in the game. Henley Parker went 2-for-3 with an RBI as the only player with multiple hits and Watkins doubled for the game’s only extra-base hit.
Next up were the Hannibal Pirates, and it didn’t take long for Jackson to jump on them with two runs in the first, courtesy of a Hackworth double. That was all Kaden Kendle would need as he fired four innings of one-run ball to earn the victory.
The Pirates tried to make a game of it late, closing the gap to 4-3, but the Indians exploded for five runs in the seventh. They took advantage of wild Hannibal pitching and pushed the score to 9-3, slamming the door shut.
Hackworth and Jack Wyatt each had a pair of RBI, and this patient Indians offense collectively worked eight walks. Watkins, Parker and Grant Dotson all drove in runs in the game as well.
That was the last bit of good news for the Tribe though. The win set them up to play the Francis Howell Vikings, who are ranked number two in the state, and they are no easy mark. Jackson is tough too though, and they looked primed to pull off the upset. Up 4-1 after the first three innings, they appeared to be cruising, but the bullpen imploded and gave up nine runs in the fifth and three more in the six to flip the mercy switch.
They fell 15-5, but there were some bright spots. Bogenpohl launched the first homer of the season for the Indians, and McDaniel tossed four innings of three-run ball against a deadly lineup.
That pushed Jackson into the third place game of the tournament, but this time they would have to face the number five team in the state in the CBC Cadets. Both teams put up four runs in the first, and it looked like it was going to be a back-and-forth slugfest, but CBC tacked on six more in the second.
Jackson rebounded with three in the third, but the Cadets just kept scoring. They took this one 15-7, despite home runs from Hackworth and Quinton Borders, who each drove in three. Shaky pitching and sloppy fielding doomed the Indians in this one, as they committed five errors against a team you just can’t make mistakes against.
Still, Jackson took fourth in the tournament and is 3-2 on the very young season. They will look to get back in the win column on Thursday as they host Dexter on Senior Night. With a dozen 12th graders on the team, it should be quite the spectacle.
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