South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Tigers baseball team roars into district play

The Oakville Senior High School baseball team is rumbling its way to this week’s district tournament with a four-game winning streak that began at last week’s Suburban South/West Conference Tournament.

Oakville head coach Rich Sturm believes his team’s success in the tournament was because the Tigers were able to pull out some close wins.

“The thing we’ve been able to do these last four games is that we’ve been able to win the close games,” Sturm told the Call. “We knew that every game last week would be tough.”

The Tigers (17-7, 5-3 Suburban West) opened the tournament with a 4-0 win over Lafayette on May 7 and proceeded to re-cord a 3-0 shutout win over Webster Groves on May 8.

Yet Oakville’s most dramatic win of the week was May 9’s 4-3 win at Parkway North, which helped the Tigers win their bracket.

The highlight of the game came in the bottom of the seventh inning when Oakville’s Blake Carrigan threw out the game-tying run at home plate, according to Sturm.

“We knew that one through nine, Park-way North had guys swinging the bat really well,” Sturm said. “To throw a guy out to end the game, it was just an unbelievable play.”

Carrigan also had a solid afternoon at the plate with a two-hit performance that generated two runs batted in. The senior outfielder is carrying a .438 batting average with 14 runs batted in.

Oakville starting pitcher Drew Stanton gave up one run on three hits in three innings. The sophomore hurler walked three and struck out one in the no-decision effort.

He’s 2-0 overall with a 1.17 earned-run average.

“It had been two weeks since Drew had last started,” Sturm said. “We wanted to give him another start before districts started.”

Stanton was relieved in the fourth inning by Nick Schmiemeier, who gave up two runs on six hits in four innings.

Schmiemeier also walked two and struck out two in the sophomore’s third win of the season. He’s 3-0 overall this season with a 3.12 earned-run average.

“We had watched Nick pitch as a freshman and we were very impressed with his stuff,” Sturm said. “I think he’s going to be a big part of what we do these next two years.”

Oakville is back in action this week for the Class 4, District 3 Tournament at Oak-ville Senior High, 557 Milburn Road.

On Tuesday, the Tigers were scheduled to face the winner at the previous day’s game between St. Mary and Mehlville. The tournament championship game is scheduled for 4:15 p.m. Wednesday.

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