Baseball

The Teutopolis Junior High baseball team is headed back to the state tournament.

The Wooden Shoes earned their state tournament berth with a 9-1 win Saturday over Paris Mayo in the championship game of the sectional, hosted by TJHS.

The Class 2A State Tournament will be played Friday and Saturday at the Eastside Centre in East Peoria.

Teutopolis, now 18-2 on the season, will play Pleasant Plains (18-5) at noon Friday. The winner of that game will advance to the semifinals and play at 10 a.m. Saturday.

The third place contest will be played at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and the championship game is set for 4:30 p.m.

The Teutopolis Wooden Shoes ended their fall baseball season on a winning note Friday, posting a 7-3 victory over St. Anthony at Paul Smith Field in Effingham.

The Shoes scored three runs in the opening inning and built a 5-0 lead, which was plenty for senior pitcher Trenton Schwerdt, who turned in a complete game performance.

Schwerdt allowed five hits and three unearned runs. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out three, while throwing 93 pitches.

In that first inning, Luke Ungrund led off with a base hit, went to second on a bunt and scored on a single by Schwerdt. With two outs, Evan Wermert and Matthew Deters delivered back-to-back RBI doubles to stake THS to a quick 3-0 lead.

Ten seems to be a perfect number lately for the Teutopolis baseball team.

For the third game in a row, the Shoes posted a 10-0 victory – this time against Windsor/Stew-Stras at home Wednesday afternoon.

It stretched the T-Town winning streak to nine and the shutout streak has now reached 30 innings and five straight games. The Shoes have outscored their opponents 74-9 during the winning streak.

Evan Addis was the latest pitcher to throw up “goose eggs,” allowing WSS only four hits in his five-inning, 79-pitch performance. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out five.

Offensively, THS got all it needed with a six-run second inning. Mitch Hemmen led off with a double and Evan Wermert walked. Matt Deters then doubled in the first run. After Addis walked to load the bases, Justin Hardiek singled in two more. Later in the inning, Mitch Hardiek’s ground out brought home a run and Trenton Schwerdt capped the inning with a two-run double.

The Shoes ended the game with a four-run fifth. After a hit batter and walk, Addis delivered a two-run double and Justin Hardiek ended his 2-for-3, 4-RBI day with a two-run triple that accounted for the final two runs and brought the 10-run rule into effect.

T-Town improved to 14-2 and will play today (Thursday) at home against Altamont.

By Steve Raymond

ET Sports Report

All good things come to an end.

Even streaks in sports.

Such was the case Thursday in Teutopolis.

The Altamont Indians got a strong pitching performance from Kaden Eirhart and took advantage of some untimely T-Town errors to post a 4-2 win in the first game of a doubleheader.

That snapped the Wooden Shoes nine-game winning streak and their string of five consecutive shutouts.

The Shoes bounced back in the nightcap. They banged out 12 hits, en route to a 14-1 decision in five innings.

“Altamont did the same thing to us in the next to last game last year,” THS coach Justin Fleener said. “They beat us 5-2 that day. But after the game today, I told the boys to use this as a drive into the spring. Things turned out alright for us last spring.”

The game started out fine for Teutopolis.