Early in the game, the Shoes threatened to make the game lopsided. They only had three hits, but took advantage of five walks, three hit batters, a wild pitch and a costly error to tally seven times in the first three innings.

In the opening inning, Sam Bushur led off with a walk and scored when Kayden Althoff lined a double into the right-centerfield gap. Another walk and back-to-back hit batters forced in the second run.

The Shoes made it 3-0 in the second when Bushur was hit by a pitch, stole second, went to third when Althoff grounded an infield single deep in the hole at shortstop and scored on Evan Wermert’s fly ball.

T-Town then pushed four more runs across the plate in the third with only one hit. Derek Konkel got a one-out walk, Dylan Pruemer lined a hit-and-run single up the middle and Derek Deters walked to load the bases.

Mitch Althoff then grounded a ball to the shortstop, who made a wild throw to second, allowing two runners to cross the plate. Another run scored on a wild pitch and Althoff brought the fourth run home with a fly ball.

The Shoes scored their final run in the bottom of the sixth. Max Niebrugge got an infield single, stole second and scored when Braydon Gaddis delivered an RBI single.

THS did receive a solid pitching performance. Andy Niebrugge, Pruemer and Kendall Schmidt combined to allow just one run on three hits, while walking one and striking out nine. Niebrugge went the first three innings to get the win.

“I thought all three did a good job on the mound today,” Fleener said. “I was real happy to see what Kendell did. That was just the second time he’s pitched this spring.”

The Shoes improved to 15-6 overall and 2-2 in the Apollo Conference. They will play Monday at home against Mahomet-Seymour in another conference contest. They will also play Tuesday at Mattoon, Wednesday at home against North Clay and Saturday at home against Effingham.

“We have a lot of games next week, so I needed to make sure I took care of our pitchers so we’d be ready. We should be in good shape,” Fleener explained.

“We still got a win today,” the veteran coach added. “The way we played, though, was not the direction we want to be heading. We need that extra punch to get us over the hump. But I have confidence in these kids. We’ll get there.”