In need of some big hits, East Newton’s Clayton Miller delivered.
Miller knocked in three of his teams final four runs to help the East Newton Rockets pull out an 8-4 victory over McDonald County Post 392 in the Marcus O’Hara Wood Bat Tournament in Monett.
The game was tied after three innings, but the Rockets got a pair of runs in the fourth and sixth innings to pull ahead of Post 392.
Tied at 4-4 in the fourth inning, a hit by pitch and then an error put runners on the corners for East Newton. Taylor Hunt doubled to drive in the first run. Then, Miller hit a sacrifice fly to make it 6-4.
In the sixth inning, Mason Whitman reached on a fielder’s choice, before Miller hit a 2-run homer.
McDonald County scored its runs in the second and third innings. In the first inning, Bo Bergen had a sacrifice fly to drive in a run and Dakota Acuff singled in a run. In the third inning, Post 392 tied the game at 4-4 when Drew Pearcy had an RBI single and Peak was hit by a pitch to force in a run.
In the second inning, the Rockets scored four runs. Colby Brown had the big hit, a 2-run single. Jake Henson (Diamond) had an RBI single and Dewayne McBride was hit by a pitch to force in another run.
Sy Morris, Bryan Burnett and Kaleb Schlessman all had two hits for Post 392 (15-11). McDonald County’s biggest problem was lack of timely hitting, as the bases were loaded in the third and fourth inning and runners were on second and third in the fifth inning and the team only mustered one run out of all of that.
Whitman got the victory, while Charlie Bridenstine got the loss.
Tyler Spencer started for the Rockets.
The two teams meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Anderson in a district game.
