Chaffee Senior Babe Ruth team sweeps Jackson

The Chaffee Senior Babe Ruth team finished last season 12-14 and failed to qualify for postseason play.

Chaffee earned its 12th and 13th wins of this summer Thursday night with a doubleheader sweep of defending state champion Jackson at Legion Field in Jackson.

Chaffee improved to 13-1 and 2-0 in district play.

"We talked about it a little bit beforehand -- they represented our league well last year," Chaffee coach Aaron Horrell said about facing the defending state champions. "They won state and everything, which we didn't really push for making the playoffs last year because we had other summer things going on.

"I really want to push the postseason this year. We're just trying to win the league and get a good head start on the postseason. We really feel like we've got a good chance to win state this year."

Chaffee's Greg Davis gets a hit during the fourth inning of a Senior Babe Ruth baseball game against Jackson on Thursday in Jackson. Chaffee won the first game 8-2. (Kristin Eberts)

Chaffee will get to participate in the state tournament this season because it will serve as host.

"We see it on their shirts, it says 'state champs' and the banner," Chaffee starter Connor Scott said. "We saw that coming in, and it just was a little bit extra fire, a little salt on the sore.

"This is our first real league game, so it's real big to get the first win."

Chaffee, which won game one 8-2, jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first thanks in large part to three errors made by Jackson, which made five fielding errors in the game. That didn't count two mental errors coach Paul Sander noticed.

"What we did was give them an extra out every inning," Sander said. "If you count the mental errors and the physical errors -- seven total -- you've given a good team an extra out every inning. And when you give a good team four outs an inning instead of three, you're going to get beat most of the time."

Chaffee's Connor Scott pitches during the second inning of Thursday's first game against Jackson.

Jackson started the bottom of the first inning with four consecutive hits off Scott, the last of which was a two-RBI double by Jesse Schott that provided Jackson's only runs.

Chaffee center field Scott Foster helped limit the damage by throwing out a runner at the plate for the first out of the inning.

"We come right in and get four hits in a row and their center fielder set the tone for them by throwing a rope to home and threw out Trent Steffens," Sander said. "He's fast, and he had him thrown out by two steps. You can't do anything but take your hat off to a throw like that."

Scott, who graduated from East Prairie High School this spring, struck out the two batters after Schott's double to end the inning.

"Most of the time I just start out slow and get stronger as the game goes along," Scott said. "My location's off at the beginning. I've just got to get used to the mound, get used to the environment. Once I get settled in, I throw a lot of strikes and my defense helped me out."

Scott struck out 11 and did not walk a batter. Jackson scattered five hits after the first inning and stranded seven baserunners.

"He really did what we've become accustomed to," Horrell said. "He throws strikes with all his pitches and really locates them well, too."

Chaffee added a run on Foster's infield single in the fourth inning and three more in fifth, again aided by a costly Jackson error, which allowed two runs to score.

"We've so far been very sporadic in our defense," Sander said. "We played one good defensive game against New Madrid the other night and one like this one. We've got a lot of kids coming from different schools. Hopefully that's just a sign of the chemistry needing to come together and kids needing to get used to playing with each other. If it's not, then we've got problems with our defense."

Chaffee finished with 10 hits, including one hit from the Nos. 1 through 8 spots in its lineup. No. 9 hitter Greg Davis collected two hits, including a double in the fourth inning.

"We've got a pretty good lineup up and down," Horrell said. "I don't do a lot of bunting or small ball. I let the kids go up there and swing and try to put up crooked numbers every inning, try to have good at-bats."

Spencer Sander and Matt Stueve both finished with two hits for Jackson.

Chaffee won the second game of the doubleheader 9-7. Chaffee jumped out to a 7-2 lead before Jackson rallied to tie the game after five innings.

Mitchell Dirnberger's two-out, two-run double in the sixth pushed Chaffee to victory.

Jackson dropped to 3-3 overall and 1-3 in district play.