Baseball: Sparkling D sends Dixon to victory

DIXON – Coming into the season, the Dixon Dukes knew the key to success was going to be their pitching and defense.

Both of those things were on full display Thursday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Field.

James Leslie struck out 10 in a complete game, and the Dixon defense made a half-dozen stellar plays behind him in a 4-1 Big Northern Conference victory over Stillman Valley.

[ Photos from Dixon vs. Stillman Valley baseball ]

“They got me going. I delivered my pitches, and they made the plays that got the energy going. It just made me want to get tough, really,” Leslie said. “We got the job done on both sides. We could’ve hit a little better, but it’s all right – especially when the defense is playing like that.”

The Dukes (11-6, 10-2 BNC) took advantage of a couple of opportunities on offense early in the game, then rode the defense the rest of the way. Shortstop Alex Harrison made two leaping plays to snag line drives and had a phenomenal over-the-shoulder catch later in the game, and he also made a good play moving to his left on a grounder up the middle in the top of the second.

First baseman Bryce Feit made a nice scoop for the out on that play, and later threw out a Stillman runner at home plate after tracking down a wayward throw in the fifth inning.

In all, Dixon recorded four outs on the basepaths, and turned double plays on two hard-hit balls by Stillman Valley (13-10, 7-6 BNC).

“They did put pressure on us, but we told the pitchers from Day 1 that they’ve got to throw strikes and we’ll back them up,” Harrison said. “Defense is the best part of our game, and a shout out to Kyan [Adkins]; he had two great plays today, and it was definitely defense today kept it going for us. Everyone played well.”

The Dukes set the tone from the start. After a leadoff single on the first pitch of the game, Adkins made the catch on a short fly ball to right field on the next pitch and doubled off the Stillman runner at first base.

In the second inning, Harrison made the play up the middle, then in the top of the third, leapt to catch a line drive; both of those plays helped Leslie get through those innings in just eight pitches each.

Adkins was at it again in the fifth, as he played a sharp liner off one hop in shallow right field and threw out the Stillman batter at first base.

“I’ve never done that before; I have thrown out one guy at first before, but never two,” Adkins said. “I didn’t even think about it, I just threw the ball. It was just kind of reaction, I guess.

“Defense wins games, and the defense today just played great. Alex had a couple of really good plays there at short, and only a couple of errors, that’s huge for us.”

With a runner on second and two outs for the next batter, the Cardinals hit a grounder to second; the ball was bobbled, and the hurried throw to first was low. But Feit, playing for usual first baseman Quentin Seggebruch – who was participating in the Whiteside Area Career Center’s CEO Showcase – got a piece of the ball and kept it from getting too far away; Feit chased it down in foul territory and threw out the runner trying to score on the play for the final out of the inning.

Stillman’s Braden Engel led off the top of the sixth with a double down the right-field line, then went to third on a passed ball before Keaton Rauman knocked him in with his third hit of the game. But after a hit by pitch put runners on first and second with nobody out, Harrison made another leaping catch on a liner, and this time doubled off Rauman at second base to flip the momentum of the inning.

“We had several opportunities that we didn’t take advantage of. We put the ball in play hard a couple times, and some other times we had scoring opportunities and we didn’t put the ball in play,” Stillman Valley coach Scott Willhite said. “That’s kind of the name of the game. When you have opportunities, especially in a low-scoring game, sometimes it’s when you get the hits, not how many you get.”

Leading 4-1 going into the top of the seventh, Harrison made the play of the game to cap the exceptional day of defense for Dixon. Stillman’s Charlie Drake hit a short fly ball to lead off the inning, and Dixon center fielder Max Clark slipped as he started toward it.

Seeing that, Harrison sprinted behind second base into the outfield and made the grab with his back to the infield to turn what looked like a potential rally-starting hit into an out and change the tone of the inning entirely.

“I kind of looked up and saw him slip, and then I knew I had to get to it,” Harrison said. “I tracked it pretty good and made the play.”

“That play changed the whole inning,” Dixon coach Jason Burgess said. “We made a lot of plays today on defense that really took the wind out of their sails.”

Leslie then struck out the next two hitters with curve balls to end the game; he had strikeouts to end five of the seven innings. He allowed one run and seven hits, with 10 strikeouts, no walks and one hit batsman, throwing 70 of his 103 pitches for strikes.

“Curveball was working pretty well. I did hit that one kid, but that’s just a missed pitch; it was working every other time,” Leslie said. “We just really wanted to get them out front and roll over on some grounders. They popped up a lot, and Kyan and Alex did their thing today. They definitely won that game for me. That defense, you can’t beat it.”

Almost lost in the shuffle was a strong start by Stillman Valley’s Aiden Cicogna. He allowed four runs (two earned) and five hits in a complete game, throwing 61 of his 93 pitches for strikes and finishing with nine strikeouts and two walks.

“Curveball was working really well, got a lot of arm angles coming up over top and a little slurve action, and they couldn’t really hit that at all today. That was working a lot,” Cicogna said. “To the righties, I was hitting that outside corner with a little two-seam coming back on the outside, and [the umpire] called those for strikes a lot today, so that worked out.

“The big thing really is just throwing strikes, not letting guys get on early in the inning, letting our defense make plays. Making errors and letting runs in kind of sucks as a pitcher, because you’re throwing good pitches and not getting outs, but really you’ve got to fight through it and keep pounding the zone.”

With both pitchers dealing, Dixon made the most of its scoring opportunities. A two-out error in the bottom of the second allowed two runs to score, then in the third, Harrison led off with a single and went to third on a hit-and-run play when Clark singled; Clark then took second without a throw on the next pitch to put two runners in scoring position with nobody out.

Ari Selmani drove in Harrison with a groundout to second base, then Quade Richards – who also had a pair of infield singles and scored the first run – hit a sacrifice fly to right to plate Clark for a 4-0 lead.