Playing for the second time in less than a week, the McDonald County Post 392 and East Newton American Legion teams were familiar with each other.
And the familiarity led to a close game, which Post 392 won by scoring three times in the sixth inning to win 3-2 Wednesday night at McDonald County High School in a non-district game.
McDonald County won the second game as well, 10-0. The two teams met last Saturday in the Monett Tournament and East Newton prevailed in that matchup 8-4. East Newton went up 2-0 in the third inning when Clayton Miller had an RBI single, scoring Jake Simpson, who walked. Later in the inning, an error on Colby Brown’s hit allowed Miller to score.
McDonald County (17-11) scored all of its runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Bo Bergen and Dakota Acuff had back-to-back one-out singles. With two outs, Drew Pearcy had an RBI single and Nick Wills then smacked a two-run single to make it 3-2. Wills, the starting pitcher, got the win thanks to his hit.
In the top of the seventh – the final inning – East Newton had a runner on, but the game ended with a runner thrown out trying to steal. Trevor Speagle got the save on the mound for Post 392. Wills struck out six and gave up four hits and one earned run on the mound for the victory. Tyler Spencer started and went all six innings for East Newton and was tagged with the loss.
In the second game, a five-run first inning set the tone for McDonald County. Kaleb Schlessman led the way going 2-for-2 with two doubles and four RBI.
