Cory Kyle strong on mound as Tigers score 12 in win over St. Elizabeth
By Israel Potoczny
 
VIENNA — For the second consecutive season, the Stoutland baseball team is in the Missouri Class 1 state playoffs.

On Wednesday, Stoutland defeated St. Elizabeth 12-2 in the District 8 championship game behind the pitching of Corey Kyle.

Kyle (5-0) threw six innings, allowed two runs, one earned, four hits and struck out 14 batters.

“He was really dominant most of the night,” Stoutland head coach Scott White said. “And dominant without getting the pitch that we live with — the low outside fastball that he can pinpoint.

“He had a lot of extended counts. I would have hated to have seen it last night if he was getting that outside corner.”

Stoutland (19-1) jumped on the Hornets with five runs in the first inning behind a solo home run by Tyler Wrinkle and a two-run homer by Brock Chaffin.

In the second, Chaffin singled, stole second and scored on a Daniel Hernandez single. The Tigers then got a run on a steal of home when a runner got caught off first base.

In the third inning, Seth Burns and Adam Smith singled behind a three-run homer by Wrinkle.

“He hit a blast,” White said. “He crushed it to dead centerfield.”

Stoutland loaded the bases in the fifth and scored on a Kyle sacrifice fly.

The Tigers added a run in the sixth on an error and an RBI single by Rusty Bragg.

Smith was 2-for-4, Wrinkle was 2-for-4, Chaffin was 2-for-3, Hernandez was 2-for-4, Seth Burns was 2-for-2 and was hit-by-pitch twice, Bragg was 2-for-4 and Blaine Willard was 1-for-3.

Stoutland (19-1) will play Wheatland or Walnut Grove at 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

 

 

 

Stoutland defeats Walnut Grove, will face Miller Ace
By Israel Potoczny
 
WALNUT GROVE — Just two days after Josh White had his best pitching performance as a Stoutland Tiger, Cory Kyle will get the ball today and an opportunity to square off with one of the top sophomore pitchers in southwest Missouri, Tyler Abma.

Stoutland defeated Walnut Grove on Wednesday in a Missouri Class 1 sectional game, 3-1, as White allowed just two hits, one run and one walk.

Walnut Grove scored its only run in the first inning on a walk and a pair of singles.

White recovered to strike out the side in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings and finished the game with 19 total.

White allowed just one base runner after the first inning when a Walnut Grove batter leaned into a pitch and was hit in the helmet.

“(Josh White) was just dominant ... And it couldn’t have come at a better time.” Stoutland head coach Scott White said.

Derrick Mitchell started the game for Walnut Grove and threw seven innings, allowed five hits, walked one, hit three and struck out 10.

“Their kid was tough,” coach White said. “He was throwing harder than what we had seen him throw.

“We had watched him twice and he had been around 82-83 mph. On Wednesday, we had him on the gun in the first inning at 88-89 mph.”

Stoutland tied the game at one when Brock Chaffin hit the first pitch of the second inning over the fence for his fourth home run of the season.

“It was a bomb,” coach White said.

In the fifth inning, Josh White bunted for a hit, then scored when a line-drive single got by the Walnut Grove leftfielder.

“That is two years in a row that Willard has had the game-winning RBI in sectionals,” White said. “Last year it was a sacrifice fly.”

In the sixth inning, Stoutland junior Tyler Wrinkle hit his fifth home run of the season.

“We did a really good job of doing some things, we just didn’t hit the ball very well,” White said. “When a kid is throwing a good fastball and a good curveball it makes it difficult.”

Stoutland will face Miller at 1 p.m. today at Miller High School.

Tyler Abma will get the start for Miller.

“We are going to have our hands full against him,” White said. “We’ll have our No. 1 going and they’ll have their No. 1 going and it should be a really good match-up.”

White said the team has seen similar pitching this season having played a number of games against larger class teams.

Stoutland’s only loss this season, Hartville, was to a Class 2 team, and a host of its wins were against larger class teams.

Miller has lost four games to Class 2 teams.

“That is one of the reasons we play as tough a schedule as we do,” White said. “We are not shocked and are not surprised by anything we see.

“We just think our pitching is as good as anybody’s. A lot of Class 1 teams may have that one kid, but we feel we have three to four.”

 
 

Stoutland to Final Four!
By Israel Potoczny — The Daily Record

Kyle outduels Abma in matchup of top area pitchers
MILLER — Patience was the plan.

In the dual of two of the top pitchers in Class 1 baseball, Stoutland junior Cory Kyle out-dueled Miller sophomore Tyler Abma as the Tigers worked Abma for seven walks, two hit batters and 141 pitches en route to a 10-4 win in the Class 1 quarterfinals on Friday at Miller.

Stoutland (22-1) will play the winner of the Archie-Santa Fe quarterfinal game in the Missouri Class 1 semifinals at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

The championship will be at 4 p.m. on Thursday.

Trailing 4-2 in the third, Stoutland tied the game at four when three consecutive walks loaded the bases for Daniel Hernandez.

The junior came through with a double, scoring Adam Smith and Tyler Wrinkle.

The sixth was more of the same, as a walk and two singles loaded the bases.
Kyle and Chaffin each walked with the bases loaded, forcing home a run each time.

Then Hernandez doubled again, this time clearing the bases.

While Abma was all over the map, Kyle was right on target after the third inning.

Kyle allowed a three-run homer that cleared the 260-foot sign in left field in the third, but didn’t allow a base runner after the fourth inning.

Kyle threw all seven innings, allowed three hits, struck out 10 and didn’t issue a walk.

“He didn’t have his best stuff, but he is a bulldog out there on the mound,” Stoutland head coach Scott White said. “After we tied the game up (at four in the third inning) ... you just knew they weren’t going to (score).”

Despite his troubles, Abma set the state’s single-season strikeout record, finishing the season with 170.

White said the game plan all along was to make Abma work.

“He is a really good little pitcher, but we knew once he got tired his breaking ball would start coming up short,” White said. “That was the plan and it worked him into a lot of long counts.

“We had a lot of base runners, but we didn’t get many hits.”

While Miller was shaky in the field on defense, committing three errors, White said the Tigers were solid behind Kyle.

“Burns had a great game at shortstop and had a couple of really nice plays,” White said.

The Tigers will make their second appearance in the baseball Final Four in two seasons. Last season, Stoutland defeated Silex 9-5 in the semifinals, then fell to Sacred Heart 11-4 in the championship.

 

 

 

Stoutland to play for title
By Israel Potoczny — The Daily Record
 
STOUTLAND — For the second time in two seasons, the Stoutland Tigers will play in the Missouri Class 1 Final Four.

Things will be a little different this time around.

For starters, the Tigers will be playing a little closer to home.

Due to a scheduling conflict with the University of Missouri Tigers baseball team, which will be hosting an NCAA baseball regional, the Missouri State High School Activities Association moved the baseball Class 1-4 Final Four to Meador Park in Springfield.

The other difference?

There will be no Sacred Heart High School to contend with.

The team that defeated Stoutland in the championship game last season was knocked out of the state playoffs in sectional play by Archie.

Instead, the Tigers will contend with Santa Fe (14-4) in the first round today. Stoutland is expected to win. The Tigers will face the winner of New Haven (14-5) and Valle Catholic (27-2).

Stoutland (22-1) will play Santa Fe at 7 p.m. today.

The championship game will be at 4 p.m. on Thursday, the third-place game will be at 7 p.m.

Stoutland head coach Scott White said the Tigers have already been tested in the state playoffs, having defeated two of the top pitchers in small-school baseball in southwest Missouri to advance to the Final Four.

Stoutland defeated Derrick Mitchell of Walnut Grove in a sectional game, 3-1, and Tyler Abma of Miller, in the quarterfinals on Friday, 10-4.

“I’m telling you right now, those two guys (Mitchell and Abma) were tough,” White said. “It is a confidence boost though when you get to those guys. We have done it twice now. I thought Mitchell was the better pitcher, but Abma was effectively wild.

“(He) gets you out of your comfort zone, and I was really proud of our hitters the way they buckled down and ended up blowing it open.”

Stoutland is averaging 10 runs per game and allowing 3.5 this season. The Tigers’ only loss came on May 9 to Hartville ending a 36-game winning streak that included the fall season, which the Tigers finished 18-0.

The Tigers are hitting .385 as a team and have stolen 155 bases.

Santa Fe also averages 10 runs per game and are hitting .394 as a team.

 

Stoutland in championship
By Israel Potoczny

SPRINGFIELD — It was hardly a work of art.

In a game that featured a host of walks, errors, hit batters, stranded runners, poor field conditions and a matchbox-size strike zone, the Stoutland Tigers defeated Santa Fe in the Missouri Class 1 semifinals on Wednesday at Meador Park in Springfield, 8-7, to advance to the championship game against New Haven (15-5) at 4 p.m. today.

The game ended in fitting fashion when the Santa Fe right fielder dropped a fly ball off the bat of Stoutland junior Adam Smith near the foul line with two outs in the seventh inning, allowing Seth Burns to race home from third with the winning run.

Only moments before, the Santa Fe catcher had dropped a fly ball behind home plate off the bat of Smith that would have sent the game in extra innings.

The fact that the Stoutland Tigers won an ugly game wasn’t lost on head coach Scott White.

“We are lucky to get out of here with a win,” White said.

The final run capped a Stoutland comeback that saw the Tigers erase a 5-0 second-inning Santa Fe lead, and a 7-5 sixth-inning Santa Fe lead.

“We’ve been in that situation before,” White said. “That helped us, I think, mentally. The kids were not talking about we are down 5-0, we are making all these errors. What they talked about was,  ‘We’ve been here before. This is nothing, five runs. We can put five runs up in an inning.’”

None of the four pitchers who threw in the game could master the small strike zone, as the two teams combined to issue 18 walks and hit four batters.

“Once we figured out that the strike zone wasn’t the biggest in the world, we said, ‘Hey you’re going to have to pipe it to get a strike,’” White said. “We ended up getting hit by some pitches and a bunch of walks.”

Lost in the ugly affair was the performance by Stoutland junior Josh White on the mound.

Mixed in-between the five-run second and the two-run sixth, was the unhittable White that was on display at Walnut Grove in sectionals when the junior struck out 19 batters.

On Wednesday, despite the occasional bout with wildness, White struck out 14 batters, coming within two of the Final Four record of 16 set by Tim Siegel of New Bloomfield in 1989.

“He turned in a day that for most guys, who don’t have their best stuff would have been a 10-run game, into a five-run game,” coach White said. “He battled and he did a good job of battling for us.”

Stoutland tied the game at five in the fifth inning as Santa Fe starter Logan Kirchhoff loaded the bases on two walks and left the game without retiring a batter in the frame.

Before relief pitcher Logan Wesley could get the game back under control, the Tigers had scored on a bases loaded walk by Tyler Wrinkle, a sacrifice fly by Cory Kyle, an RBI single by Brock Chaffin and a throwing error by Wesley on a pickoff throw.

Santa Fe came back to take a two-run lead in the top of the frame without the benefit of a hit. The Chiefs drew a pair of walks, then scored on an error and a wild pitch.

Daniel Hernandez relieved White with the bases loaded and two outs and retired Kirchhoff on a groundball to end the inning.

Hernandez got the win in relief, pitching around a pair of walks in a scoreless seventh.

Burns and Rusty Bragg — batting No. 8 and 9 in the line-up, respectively — combined to score six runs and reach base in 7-of-8 plate appearances. Burns drew three walks, was hit-by-pitch and scored four runs, including the winning run in the seventh.

Burns reached first with two outs on a walk and advanced to third on a long single by Bragg, then scored from third base on Smith’s fly ball.

“If we get production from the bottom third of the order, we put up lots of crooked numbers,” coach White said. “(Burns and Bragg) get on base a lot. They have really good (batting) eyes, they are willing to take a hit-by-pitch and they do a good job of that.”

Adding to the excitement was a wet field from an earlier shower and poor lighting conditions.

 

Stoutland falls in title game
By Israel Potoczny

SPRINGFIELD — On most days, the Stoutland baseball team might have been good enough to win its first Missouri Class 1 state championship.

Thursday wasn’t most days.

The Tigers had as many errors (five) as they did hits (five), while the New Haven offense did just enough to push five runs across.

In fact, the final run was symbolic of the game itself.

Down to its final out with runners on second and third, trailing 4-3 in the seventh inning, New Haven junior Craig Showe blooped a single into left field just over the outstretched reach of the Tigers’ shortstop, Seth Burns, scoring both runs and giving the Shamrocks a 5-4 lead.

New Haven struck out just three times against Stoutland starter Cory Kyle, who entered the game 5-0 with a 0.77 ERA and 76 strike outs in 45 innings.

“They put the ball in play,” Kyle said. “We just didn’t make the plays.”

Kyle threw all seven innings, allowed seven hits, and just two earned runs. After the game, Kyle was certain New Haven hadn’t seen his best stuff.

“No, not at all,” Kyle said. “My velocity wasn’t there.”

To their credit, New Haven put the ball in play, although they hit few balls hard off the Tiger starter.

Stoutland, who averaged just 1.2 errors per game throughout the season, nearly committed as many errors (8) and they had hits at the plate (10) in the two Final Four games.

“I don’t know what to say,” Stoutland head coach Scott White said after the game. “We haven’t played like this all year.”

Through it all, Stoutland had an opportunity to tie or win the game in the bottom half of the seventh inning, placing the winning run on base with two outs as Adam Smith led off by being hit by a pitch and Brock Chaffin walked with two outs.

But New Haven pitcher Scott Sory, who threw all seven innings, retired the next Stoutland hitter on a foul ball halfway between home plate and first base, near the foul line, to end the game.

The championship game marked the second time Stoutland had managed to comeback from an early deficit.

After falling behind by five runs to Santa Fe in the semifinals on Wednesday, Stoutland rallied for an 8-7 win, the Tigers fell behind 2-0 in the third inning on Thursday as they committed three errors in the frame.

This time, the Tigers rallied to tie the game, not once, but twice.

Stoutland scored its first run in the third when Rusty Bragg doubled to lead off the Stoutland third, and eventually scored on a throwing error by Schowe, the New Haven catcher.

Stoutland tied the game in the fourth when Daniel Hernandez walked and came home on another throwing error by Schowe.

New Haven scored a run in the fifth to take a 3-2 lead, once again aided by a Stoutland miscue in the field.

In the Stoutland half of the sixth, Hernandez led off the inning by being hit by a pitch, then pinch-hitter Scotty Breeden singled with one out.

Bragg lifted sacrifice fly to left to tie the game, and Schowe threw wild to second for his third error, allowing Hernandez to score the go-ahead run.

Bragg had the Tigers only extra-base hit in the two Final Four games, as the Tigers, who entered the semifinals hitting .386 as a team, but hit just .255 in the two games at Meador Park (11-43).