By MATT PIKE
The St. Joseph Mustangs survived a late push by the Kansas City Monarchs to win their final non MINK League game of the season at Phil Welch Stadium 9-8 as the regular season winds down.
The Mustangs fell behind 3-0 early as the Monarchs scored one in the first inning on a wild pitch, with Ty White coming home, and two more in the top of the second, a sacrifice fly from Doug Martin driving in Luke Meredith and Brady Holden scoring on an RBI single from Alex Lahasky. In the bottom half of the inning though, the Mustangs took the lead back for good with a five run frame.
Carter Belton's RBI single scored Tyler Gundelfinger to cut the lead to two, and then an RBI double by Frank Gall drove in Seth Winkler to make it one. The Mustangs tied the game on a bases loaded walk to Jayden Little, bringing home Chris Coy, and took the lead with a two RBI single from Carson Schrack, bringing Gall and Brayden Luikart across home plate for the 5-3 lead. St. Joseph added another run in the third inning, an RBI single from Coy scoring Winkler, and extended the lead to 7-3 in the fifth on an RBI double from Schrack, bringing home Little.
In the sixth inning the Monarchs started to rally back, Lahasky grounding out and driving in Martin to chip into the lead. Another run scored in the seventh on a wild pitch, bringing home Devan O'Brien, before Kansas City tied the game in the eighth inning scoring two more runs, the first an RBI single by Gilberto Peña driving home Cam Messerschmidt, then a walk to O'Brien allowing White to score on a wild pitch. The game tied 7-7, the Mustangs scored two in the bottom half of the eighth to take the lead back, Schrack singling home Micah Kobuszewski and Gundelfinger singling home Little to take a 9-7 lead going into the final inning.
Jaxon Turner took the mound in the ninth and walked Holden but then struck out Martin. Turner got the second out on a pop out to the first baseman Little by Messerschmidt, however a throwing error from Little allowed Holden to go from first base to second and Holden scored with two outs on an RBI single from White. With the tying run on first, Lahasky grounded out to end the game.
Keegan Gudde threw 5.2 innings and gave up four runs on five hits while walking eight batters and striking out two. Turner threw one inning of relief for the save, giving up one run unearned on one hit with a walk and a strikeout. At the plate, Schrack was 4-for-5 with a double and four RBI's. Gundelfinger was 3-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored while Coy was 2-for-5 with an RBI and a run.
The Mustangs have three games remaining and are 24-14 on the season. They resume conference play for the final games of the season, starting tomorrow against the Clarinda A's at Phil Welch Stadium. First pitch is at 7pm.