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Baseball: Complete effort lifts Assumption to sweep

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By Andrew Petersen | Monday, June 30, 2008 10:50 PM CDT | () comments

Billy Argo likes to have options.

Fifteen of the 22 players on his Davenport Assumption baseball roster are listed as pitchers.

On Monday, though, Argo only had to lean on four of those guys through 12 innings.

That crew combined to give up just one run on six hits as the Knights swept Pleasant Valley in the doubleheader 15-0 and 9-1.

Jared McIntosh threw all five innings in Game 1, while Adam Gacke, John Blough and Alex Mallonee pieced together seven frames of one-run ball in the second game.

Assumption (25-8, 13-3 Mississippi Athletic Conference) was equally proficient offensively.

Most notably, the Knights scored 14 of their 24 runs with two outs. They drew 14 walks, with nine of those runners scoring.

“That’s baseball,” McIntosh said. “We get three outs in an inning, and we’re going to use all three. We don’t give in.”

That approach has kept Assumption in the MAC race with two games left against Muscatine on Thursday.

The Knights put a runner on base in all 12 innings Monday and scored in nine of those frames.

Mike Furlong led Assumption, going 5-for-8. Willie Argo was 3-for-8 with five RBIs.

“I think that’s kind of where we are as a team,” Billy Argo said of the Knights’ efficiency. “We had been in a bit of a lull, but I think we’re ramping it back up.”

PV, meanwhile, is experiencing exactly the opposite swing, dropping its seventh straight MAC game. The Spartans, 5-9 in the conference, are 11-19 after a 10-6 start to the summer.

Their struggles were Assumption’s successes. Too many walks by the pitchers, too little hitting by the batters.

“We’re having trouble doing just about everything you can have trouble doing in baseball,” PV coach Tim Gronski said. “We’re looking for that consistency. Right now, we have consistently bad play.”

Joe Brom finished 2-for-5 and drove in the lone run for the Spartans.

Nathan Schickling took the loss for PV in Game 1, despite allowing just one earned run. Six errors in his 21/3 innings paved the way for 10 Assumption runs.

Andrew Petersen can be contacted at (563) 383-2288 or apetersen@qctimes.com.