Highland built a five-run lead and managed to hang on Friday afternoon, posting a 6-4 win at home over Teutopolis.

The game was tied 1-1 before the Bulldogs scored three runs in the bottom of the third and added two more in the fourth to build the 6-1 advantage.

The Shoes tried to stage a comeback.

They scored twice in the fifth to close within 6-3. Sam Bushur led off with a base hit and Evan Wermert doubled. Then with two outs, Evan Adds came through with a base hit that drove in both runners.

T-Town added another tally in the seventh. Wermert walked, Andy Niebrugge had a base hit and Addis drove home the run with a fly ball. The Shoes had two runners on base before the final out was recorded.

Cade Buehnerkemper, the second of fourth THS pitchers, took the loss. He allowed six hits and five runs over 1.2 innings of work.

The loss snapped a six-game winning streak and dropped the Shoes to 10-3. They will be back in action today (Saturday) at home against Mahomet-Seymour in an Apollo Conference contest.

Teutopolis broke a tie with three runs in the sixth inning Thursday and came home with a 4-1 victory at Olney.

Base hits by Evan Wermert and Evan Addis, plus a walk to Andy Niebrugge, loaded the bases for the Shoes in the top of the sixth. Derek Konkel’s ground ball drove in what proved to be the winning run. Hayden Ruholl then walked to load the bases again and an error on a pop-up off the bat of Dylan Pruemer allowed two more runs to score.

That was enough for Pruemer, who pitched the final two innings to get the win and help the Shoes improve to 8-2 on the spring season.

It was scoreless tie after the first four innings. The Shoes got on the scoreboard first in the fifth. Ruholl got a two-out single, went to second on a fielder’s choice and scored when Logan Roepke delivered a key RBI single. The Tigers tied the score with an unearned run in the bottom of the fifth.

Wermert and Addis both had two hits in T-Town’s seven-hit attack.

Cade Buehnerkemper was the starting pitcher for the Shoes and turned in 4.2 strong innings of work. He allowed only three hits and one unearned run. He walked one and struck out one. Pruemer got the final out in the fifth and pitched the final two innings to get the win. He only gave up one hit, while walking two and striking out one.

The Shoes will be back in action Saturday. They will open Apollo Conference play at Charleston. The first pitch is scheduled for 11 a.m.

It was like Home Run Derby for the Teutopolis baseball team Saturday.

The Wooden Shoes blasted seven round-trippers, en route to a doubleheader sweep in Charleston.

Five of those came in the opener, helping T-Town to a 17-4 win.

Two more cleared the fence in the second game, as the Shoe completed the sweep with a 16-7 decision.

In the opener, Evan Wermert belted a pair of three-run homers, while Logan Roepke and Derek Konkel had solo shots and Dylan Pruemer blasted a grand slam.

And the long ball parade started quickly.

In the top of the first, Sam Bushur led off with a base hit, Kayden Althoff walked and Wermert unloaded his first three-run blast to stake the Shoes to the early lead.

Konkel’s solo shot came in the third, but the Trojans used their own three-run third to tie the game at 4-4.

That’s when the Shoes took total control.

It started with a five-run fourth. Kayden Althoff had an RBI single, Pruemer added a run-scoring double and Wermert went deep again, and again with two runners on base to put THS on top 9-4.

The Shoes then tacked on eight more runs in the fifth and the long ball played a key role again. Roepke led off with a four-bagger. Bushur had an RBI double, Evan Addis a two-run single and Pruemer got into the home run act belting a pitch over the centerfield fence for a grand slam.

The Shoes finished with 14 hits. Wermert had six RBI, while Pruemer drove home five.

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By Steve Raymond

ET Sports Report

22-16.

No, that’s not the final score of a local football game, although this baseball game lasted almost as long.

It’s what happens when the wind is howling at nearly 20 mph and blowing straight out of the ballpark.

It was like playing at Wrigley Field when the wind is blowing out. Every pop-up was an adventure and every fly ball had a chance at being a home run.

For the record, the Teutopolis Wooden Shoes were on the winning side Tuesday of the game at home with Benton that started in the afternoon sunshine and ended three hours later with the lights on.

In addition to the 38 runs scored, the game featured 33 hits, including four home runs, 17 walks, nine hit batters and a total of 326 pitches thrown.

If this game had been shown on ESPN, it would have been dubbed an “Instant Classic.”

“I don’t remember being in a game like this ever before,” THS coach Justin Fleener said. “But the ball just kept finding the grass or flying over the fence. The pitchers struggled, but I think the wind had something to do with that, too. We like to hang our hat on pitching and defense, but we needed our bats today. And like you saw, both teams had plenty of guys that can hit the ball.”

The tone was set immediately when Benton’s lead-off hitter Dillon Poe blasted the second pitch of the game over the centerfield fence. Later in that same inning, TJ Cocke belted a three-run homer that capped a six-run uprising and staked the Rangers to the early lead.

“At that point, I just wanted us to compete,” Fleener noted. “Give credit to the guys. They didn’t lay down. They just got going. I think the thing that helped us the most was coming back and scoring two runs ourselves in the bottom of the first. We just had to keep chipping away.”

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