Spartans Narrowly Defeat St. Peters Post 313

The Central Spartans’ American Legion baseball team’s offense managed to create enough opportunities to pull out a 6-5 win against St. Peters Post 313 Tuesday night at Clarence and Huster Park.

The Spartans had just two earned runs in the victory. They banged out 10 hits while Post 313 had seven.

“We played more like we should be playing,” Spartan assistant manager Keith Watts said. “We’ve had a tough time putting the ball in play. We just weren’t getting the big hits. When you’re not getting hits, you don’t give the other team the chance to make the errors. When you put the ball in play, good things are going to happen.”

Post 313 scored two runs in the eighth inning to establish 5-4 lead, but the Spartans would respond in the bottom of the eighth. A Post 313 error allowed Joe Toeniskoetter and Austin Tedder the chance to score and make the score 6-5; Toeniskoetter and Tedder both singled earlier in the inning.

“We haven’t been hitting the ball too well lately,” Post 313 coach Marty Clemets said. “The exception is Eric Keling who has been hitting the ball very well. He’s our only consistent hitter. But both sides were ugly tonight. We made too many errors, but that’s baseball and it happens. They won and we lost.”

Austin Holtgrieve scored Post 313’s first run in the first. threw the ball to second baseman Austin Bosecker when Keling attempted to steal second. Keling reached his destination and Holtgrieve had enough time to run home from third.   

The Spartans wasted little time in catching up. Bosecker’s one-run single in the second tied the contest up at one run. Tedder scored the Spartan’s second run in the second when Holtgrieve—Post 313’s catcher—threw the ball to second baseman Tyler Davis as Bosecker started to steal second. Bosecker was safe and Tedder ran home.

Post 313 tacked on two more runs and regained the lead in the third. A Spartan error allowed Post 313’s Nick Pautler the opportunity to score and tie up the contest at two runs. David Gambino’s one-run double gave Post 313 a 3-2 advantage.

A Post 313 error in the fourth allowed the Spartans the chance to score its third run and tie up the contest at three runs. A sixth-inning error allowed Tedder the opportunity to score and the Spartans took a 4-3 lead. Tedder reached base on a double. But Post 313 would regain the lead one last time, as one runs singles from Keling and Taylor Aldridge in the eighth gave 313 a 5-4 lead.

Jimmy McGrath started on the mound for the Spartans. He was relieved by Tommy Gronek in the fifth. Gonek made his mark in the win, as he struck out five batters and gave up three hits and one run.

“Tommy pitched a very good game,” Watts said. “He fooled them with the curveball when we should have been throwing fastballs. I’ll have to give credit to our catcher (Langford) for calling the pitches.”