High School Baseball: Yates Center Wildcats
The Yates Center baseball team earned its first loss of the season in a split with St. Paul on Monday.
The Wildcats lost the first game 13-2 before getting a close 8-7 walk-off win in the second game. They are now 3-1 overall this season.
St. Paul got off to a hot start with five runs in the top of first and a run in the top of the second for a 6-0 lead.
Yates Center scored a run in the bottom of the second but the Indians kept the offensive assault going, scoring four runs in the next two innings to take a 10-1 lead.
The Wildcats scored a run in the bottom of the fourth but three more St. Paul runs in the top of the fifth ended the game after a scoreless bottom half of the inning from Yates Center.
Hits were hard to come by for the Wildcats. Yates Center recorded three with Dalton Brittain, Ty-tan Smoot and Caden Graham each getting a knock. Smoot had the Wildcats lone RBI.
Brittain earned the loss, allowing five runs on five hits and two walks in one-third of an inning.
In the second game, the Wildcats got off to a much better start, leading with a four-run bottom of the first.
St. Paul worked its way back into the game scoring two runs in both the third and fifth innings to tie it up heading into the top of the sixth.
The Indians took their first lead of the game with three runs in the top of the sixth but the Wildcats answered right back with three runs of their own to tie it up.
With runners on the corners and an out in the bottom of the seventh, Asher Sievers flew out to center-field allowing Braydon Gaulding to tag up and score the winning run.
Smoot earned the win with four runs (three earned) allowed on five hits and five walks with five strikeouts in 4.2 innings.
Sievers, Gaulding and Brittain led the way offensively with three hits each. Sievers and Gaulding each had one RBI and Devon Hathaway drove home two on two hits.
The Wildcats will host West Elk on Thursday for a doubleheader.
