Alton Post 126 edges Manchester, Mo. 7-6, then downs Chesterfield 10-3

Alton used a three-run seventh inning to rally past Manchester 7-6 before defeating Chesterfield Post 556, 10-3, in pool play of the 10th annual Baseball Battles Cancer tournament at Ballwin Park.

The numbers spoke poorly for Alton (5-3) in its opener and normally would have resulted in a loss. But Post 126 somehow, someway found a way to pull it out in the end before spotting Chesterfield a three-spot in the top of the first before running off 10 straight runs to comfortably win.

Alton will head into Saturday’s action as either a No. 2 or No. 3 seed. Alton will play at 10:30 a.m. if its No. 2 or 1 p.m. if it’s No. 3.

Alton 7, Manchester 6 – Five errors and multiple base-running mistakes almost were Alton’s undoing, but Post 126 was able to erase a 6-4 deficit down to its final at-bat to pull out an improbable win.

It’s something in the end, coach Chris Ford takes as the greatest positive.

“Absolutely, especially being down multiple runs,” Ford said. “It wasn’t like we were down one. We put three up, we did well. I’ll take it and move on.”

The rally started off Manchester reliever Michael McDermott, who walked Hayden Garner to lead off the inning, allowed a single to left by Sean Ferguson, before getting a flyout to left.

Charlie Fahnestock worked a nine-pitch walk to load the bases and then Eli Lawrence made it 6-5 with a bases loaded walk. 

Manchester brought Jacob Drake in and he hit Austin Schepers with the bases loaded to tie the game. Will Fahnestock then looped a single into right to bring in what turned out to be the game-winning run.

“You’re going to take what they give you,” Ford said. “That’s what we did, we continued all the way through. They battled all the way through and that’s all you can ask.”

Alton was its own worst enemy early in the game with five of its six errors coming in the third and fourth innings, including three on one play that didn’t help starter Seth Slayden, but Tyler Robinson came on in relief and worked a 1-2-3 seventh.

“Too many mistakes,” Ford said. “We had five or six errors, base running errors and we talked about that on Wednesday after we finished at Southwestern. Base running can either make a game or break a game and we very much tried to break the game. Just mistakes and things we’ve got to clean up moving forward.”

Alton 10, Chesterfield 3 – Garner got the start in the second game and an error, walk and hit batsman were his undoing before allowing two-out, run-scoring hits to Brody Knittel and Bryson Dixon to spot Chesterfield a 3-0 lead before settling in to work three innings.

“(Garner) was dealing with a little bit of shoulder issue and it took him a little bit to get loose, but once he got kind of stretched out, he settled in and we cleaned up the mess,” Ford said.

What helped Alton cruise was its ability to come right back in the home half of the first and tie the game 3-3.

Ferguson and Will Fahnestock had walks with the bases loaded to aid in the wildness of Chesterfield pitching to fuel the inning.

“It helped settle it in,” Ford said of the game. “It helped take some of the edge off the guys. You could see they were a little antsy trying to figure out what was going on, especially when a lot of it was unearned runs, mistakes, fielding mistakes, mental mistakes, stuff like that, stuff than what we’re better than what we showed.”

Hayden Sherman’s sacrifice fly to right and Ferguson’s RBI ground ball that turned into an error helped produce runs in the second for a 6-3 Alton lead, then Sherman and Ferguson produced RBI singles in the fourth to make it 8-3 before Schepers’ RBI double and Caden Laslie’s RBI single in the fifth made it 10-3, a game that was much cleaner for Alton.

“We don’t commit five errors and a bunch of mental errors to go with it,” Ford said. “Still didn’t hit the ball real well, but they gave us a lot of free bases and a lot of free runs it looks like. When you score 10 runs on only seven hits, it doesn’t say much about your offense.

“We’re just trying to do too much rather than just trying to make contact and put the ball in play. We’re trying to hit that three-run home run with nobody on base. We’ll get that cleaned up and move on. We’re still early in the season.”

Schepers worked two scoreless, hitless innings to get the win before Will Fraiser and Scott Vickery each worked an inning in relief to limit Chesterfield to two hits.

“They kept battling, they battled the whole game,” Ford said. “I’ll give them credit for that especially after that first game. It wasn’t pretty, but they battled all the way through, they battled to the end and they pulled it out.”