By: Zach Edgar
Staff
From March 5-7, St. Louis Community College Archers baseball team lost four of four games in a series against Jefferson College at Arsenal BG Ballpark, formerly known as Grizzlies Stadium, just over the Mississippi River in Sauget, Illinois. These games were played at a neutral location due to consistent rain throughout the week, forcing the change away from a few home games for each team. On March 6, the final score was 10-2, marking another loss in the third game of four. Five runs were scored by Jefferson College in the bottom of the first inning, pitched by William Merrikin. Merrikin kept his cool and threw a solid next two innings to give hope to an offense looking for a break. The Archers got on the score board with their first run in the top of the third.
Derek Dankenbring joined the game to pitch against Jefferson College, holding them to only two more runs scored through innings four through six. One of those runs scored was a solo home run smacked by Jefferson College catcher Andrew Sands.
While some players started to hang their heads coming back to the dugout after closing out the inning, some of the Archers players could be heard attempting to rally their teammates’ spirits. Riley Schulz took the mound last, and it didn’t take long for Jefferson College to put the game to bed, scoring three more in the seventh to close it out.
Approximately 30 people were in attendance to watch the game. There was quite a bit of talk between the umpires and just about everyone else. After some chatter on the field back and forth between the Archers coaching staff and the umpires, some supporters were then heard calling the umps “Garden Gnomes,” basically seeing them as nothing better than field ornaments.
“I just think that we felt that a couple of the close calls went against us in every aspect. It’s going to happen over the course of a season. You’re going to have a game where the calls go your way and you’re going to have games where calls go against you,” said Goodrich. “But still no excuse, we had a safe call at third base and then we threw a wild pitch to gift them a run.”
Arsenal BG Ballpark seats a maximum of 6,000 people with a turf field. This is a change of pace from both natural fields that each team usually plays on.
“I think everyone likes playing turf because it makes it a little bit easier on the infield, you know? There’s no tricky hops usually. It certainly takes a lot of the guesswork out of defense and making plays.” said Goodrich.
Goodrich said that the team needs to find a way to pitch, hit and play defense better. “We put those things together and we will be alright,” said Goodrich.
