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Sports

Panther Baseball Scores First Conference Win

Mehlville baseball battles out an important victory over Northwest in conference and district-seeding match-up.

When Mehlville hosted the Northwest Lions in a conference game on Friday, neither team had seen a regular season conference win thus far. Mehlville was 0-8 (6-11 overall) and Northwest was 0-4 (5-9 overall).

The Panthers took the game 8-4, using eight hits, including an insurance sixth-inning home run by senior Mark O'Moran. O'Moran was hit three times his first three times at bat by the Lions' starting pitcher, senior Wes Davis. He lifted a pitch from Lions's closer, senior Josh Leporin, over the left-center fence.

"Mark was frustrated after that third time," Mehlville coach Time Ode said. "And all year we just preach keeping a level head. Things don't always go our way. We can't let that frustrate us, and fortunately he didn't and came back and got a big hit for us there in the bottom of the sixth to put us by five, which we gratefully didn't need, but still put us up with some more insurance. We haven't been getting that this year."

Mehlville took advantage of hit batters and walks, and had some timely hits to score three in the second inning and two in the fourth. Starting pitcher Austin Simokaitis helped himself in the fifth with a two-RBI double. Simokaitis got his first win of the year.

"We've pretty much hung (Simokaitis) out to dry all year," Ode said. "And haven't been there for him either with the bats or with the gloves, and today we pitched in with a little bit of both and finally got him his first conference win."

"We could have come up with some key hits," Northwest coach Chad Lembach said. "We didn't play our game today. Obviously we left way to many runners on base...walks and hit batmen, and stuff like that, so you're not going to win ballgames playing like that."

Lions' starting pitcher Davis went four tough innings, striking out two while allowing five Panther hits. "He battled his butt off out there. He got a little wild at times," Lemback said.

The win means more than pride for the Panthers. Next weekend is the seeding meeting for districts, and the two teams are in the same district as well as conference. The bottom-seeded team will most likely have the honor of meeting the number one team in the area, Parkway South, currently 8-0 in conference, 16-0 overall, for their first district match-up.


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