O'Fallon Overtakes North Knights in Seven

O’FALLON - The North Knights manager, Jef Fletcher said the difference between his AAA Post 9 team and their opponents, O’Fallon, was that his team kept hitting the ball at people.

That, and “we just don’t have the pitching...We got the bats, we’re just hitting the ball at people...then the mental errors are killing us, that’s really what it is. It’s just frustrating as hell,” Fletcher said.

O’Fallon had the pitching and the bats Thursday night at Westhoff Park, overpowering  the Knights 13-3 in the seventh inning in a Post 9 league match-up.

Jake Mennemeier, of St. Dominic, went the distance for O’fallon with six strike outs, giving up one walk. It was the first win for O’Fallon. They’re now 1-6 overall and 1-1 in the league. The North Knight’s loss puts them at 0-4.

“Always like to get that first win out of the way,” Mennemeier said. “One to one in the league - that’s big, We got a shaky start, just to get evened up in the league. That’s a good start for us.

“I had my command pretty well all night, that’s usually big for me,” he said. “When I’m not going I’m usually walking everyone, so if I keep pounding the strikes I can usually be pretty successful.”

Lead-off man, Chris Backs didn’t make the Fort Zumwalt West team, but wanted to play this summer. He went four for five and had three stolen bases.

“We’ve been working really hard with Chris on how to be a lead-off hitter, and tonight he showed it,” manager Randy Michelletti said. “When you get a spark plug at the top of the lineup like that, then you get your 2, 3, 4 hitter guys that can drive them around, it adds up to a W.”

O’Fallon had two runs in the first inning, three in the fifth and sixth, and five in the seventh. The seventh was when the Knights had struggles with pitching that finally did them in. They gave up four walks and two hit by pitches. It was a hit batter that finally scored the 13th run.

“It’s a fun game,” Fletcher said. “I told the boys tonight, I think part of our problem is we’re not having fun. They are one of these teams that they’re hard-nosed kids, and we got to have fun. It’s baseball. It’s a kids’ game played by adults. and that’s what it is, you got to have fun playing the game. And we’re not right now.”

He predicted they would have fun in their next game, against the Central Spartans on Saturday. He said it’s going to be Central’s 10th anniversary, and there’s going to be a big celebration.

O’Fallon’s next game is Monday at the Rec-Plex against St. Peters at 8:30 p.m.