“This is the first game we’ve been out of it early,” EHS coach Curran McNeeley admitted. “But our problems started today at our batting practice session. We were just flat.

“I don’t know if we just came down after the two big wins over the weekend against Mt. Zion or what,” McNeeley added. “You have to find a way to get up for every game, especially against a good team like T-Town. We just didn’t come ready to play.”

The Hearts jumped out a 1-0 lead when Spencer Fox smacked a 2-1 pitch over the right-centerfield fence. Cam Raddatz and Colton Webb followed with base hits. But EHS was blanked on three hits the rest of the way by Gaddis and Logan Lawson.

The Teutopolis lefthander went six innings. He allowed five hits and the one run. He walked two and struck out four while throwing 90 pitches. Lawson pitched a scoreless seventh.

“That was Garrett’s third start and he’s looked better each time,” Fleener noted. “He’s still trying to calibrate everything.

“I thought he settled in during the middle innings,” Fleener added. “He mixed up his fastball and off-speed pitches very well. I thought his velocity picked up a little today, plus he’s a lefty. That always helps.”

As does run production.

After going on top in the second, the Shoes continued to pad their lead. They scored three runs in the third, added a single tally in the fourth, plated two in the fifth and capped things off with a four-run seventh.

In the third inning, Mitch Koester walked with two outs. That was followed by three consecutive run-scoring extra-base hits. Waldhoff ripped a double into the left-centerfield gap, Gaddis lined a double to the centerfield wall and Joey Niebrugge capped the three-run frame with a triple that traveled nearly 360 feet to the centerfield fence to make it 5-1.

Mick Niebrugge drove in a run with a ground out in the fourth and Davin Worman and Mick Niebrugge added RBI singles in the fifth. The Shoes then combined four walks, an error and an RBI double from Mitch Koester to push four more runs across the plate in the seventh.

“I didn’t think we had very good at-bats in the first inning, but after that, we got much better,” Fleener said. “We try to attack every pitcher we face. I thought we had better approaches after the first inning.”

McNeeley felt differently about his team. Through their first nine games, the Hearts had averaged seven runs per outing.

“I felt like our hitters were just guessing,” the EHS coach noted. “About halfway through the game, I thought we hit the ball hard a few times, but they were just loud outs. If a couple of those balls find the gap, who knows what happens.

“We’ve played very well so far,” McNeeley added. “We’ve played a gritty, aggressive style of baseball. But it’s easier to do that when you get runners on base. We didn’t do that tonight. We played from behind most of the game and that’s not our typical style.”

Freshman Carter Braddy started for Effingham and took the loss. He went three innings, giving up four hits and five runs. Jude Traub, Peter Rosen, Nick Martin and Brayden Tucker also pitched for the Hearts.

“I thought Carter pitched pretty well against a good ballclub,” McNeeley said. “He’ll learn from this and just get better and better.”

The Shoes improved to 7-4 on the season. They will return home Friday for a game against Flora.

The Hearts are now 8-2. They will host Dieterich Thursday afternoon.