Oakville Storms Past Rival Mehlville

Though Mehlville got a favorable hand from the windy conditions, which kept several hits in play on Tuesday afternoon at GCS Ballpark in Sauget, Ill., that's about the only break the Tigers received.

Oakville senior pitcher Chad Gendron went seven innings and allowed only three hits as the Panthers handled the Tigers 8-1 in a game that concluded just before severe storms hit the area. Mehlville is now 6-4 while Oakville is 11-2.

Gendron said once he got his mechanics right he had more guys swinging and missing. He struck out 10 batters, including the last three outs of the game. He had control problems in the fourth, walking one and hitting another.

"Some things just weren't right on my mechanics," he said. "Came back in after that inning, fixed them up, as you can see and shut it down after that." But he credited his teammates as well.

"Only three hits up on the scoreboard means they were doing some work, too," he said.

Mehville committed four errors, mostly on throws to first, while Oakville committed no errors.

"We make some costly errors and we get down, we lose focus, and it just kind of compounds, and just kind of drives us into a big inning, and that's killed us all year," Mehlville coach Tim Ode said. "We have a young, inexperienced team and those are the things we have to learn from."

Oakville coach Rich Sturm said Gendron has allowed only five earned runs in 37 innings pitched. He's "tremendous, lights out. The guy that comes out and gives a chance to win every time he takes the ball," he said.

Oakville scored four runs in the fourth, one in the fifth and three in the sixth innings. The Tigers used timely bunts and sacrifice flies to advance runners in both of their big innings.

"The pitching and defense was really good for us today, and I thought we did a good job at times putting pressure on them," Sturm said. "The other thing, I think we squared up on the ball a few times."

Ode mentioned how his team beat Seckman, 15-5, on Monday.

"We knew Oakville's good, they're always good, and regardless if they're ranked and we're not, it's Mehlville-Oakville and anything can happen," Ode said. "It always seems they bring their A-game and we bring our A-game every year and it's always a pretty good game.

"I keep telling them, even though this is conference, and it does matter, it honestly doesn't until we get to districts. So if we keep learning from our mistakes, hopefully we can fix those by the time we're ready for districts in May."

The two teams meet each other again at Oakville on Wednesday at 4:15 p.m.