As the innings kept passing without the Mendota baseball team getting a runner on base, Putnam County senior Johnathon Stunkel admitted he was feeling the pressure “a little bit.”

The Panther ace had a perfect game through six innings before an error and a hit to start the seventh ended it.

“I think somebody in the dugout mentioned it and that might have been what happened at the end, but that’s alright,” Stunkel joked.

Stunkel quickly shook off the loss of his perfect game and no-hitter on back-to-back batters to induce three straight groundouts to cap off a one-hit shutout in a 3-0 nonconference victory over Mendota on senior night Friday in Granville.

“I just had to get back into it and throw,” Stunkel said about keeping Mendota off the board following the base runners.

Stunkel made it tough for the Trojans all game as he struck out 10 batters and did not walk any.

“The curveball definitely helped me a lot today,” Stunkel said. “My curveball is probably my best pitch. I was able to pump the zone with it. Definitely starting ahead in counts helped, for sure.”

Stunkel only allowed two balls to be hit out of the infield. Mendota leadoff hitter Quinn Eddy hit a pop up to shallow left field that shortstop Maddox Poole made a diving catch on in the fourth and Esten Otero hit a hard ground ball through the left side for Mendota’s only hit.

“We knew we were going to be in the game with Johnathon throwing,” PC coach Chris Newsome said. “He always gives us a shot. Johnathon did a heck of a job. He set the tone.

“He didn’t give any free passes and that’s No. 1 is making them earn it. We’ve been guilty of letting guys on for free. It’s really been a key point we’re trying to hammer home. And then play clean behind him, and for the most part we did that.”

While Stunkel was dominant, Otero was strong for the Trojans as well.

Otero started with three scoreless innings, allowing just one hit over that stretch while striking out four, including the side in the third.

Otero threw five innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on four hits with six strikeouts and no walks.

“That was quite a pitchers’ duel,” Mendota coach Jim Eustice said. “We didn’t have a base runner until the seventh inning. What a way for (Stunkel) to have a senior night here. I’m glad he didn’t get a perfect game, but he really threw a heck of a game and they played great defense behind him.

“I thought Esten pitched fantastic. Our defense was very good. We had a couple we just couldn’t get to in the outfield.”

After not doing much offensively the first time through the order, the Panthers turned to small ball in the fourth to get on the board.

Stunkel led off with a double to left-center field and went to third on an errant throw into the infield.

Poole put down a squeeze bunt to score Stunkel for the game’s first run.

To start the fifth, Carter Hochstatter worked a full count, fouling off four pitches in the process, before hitting a double into right field.

Hochstatter moved to third on a wild pitch and scored when Jacob Furar laid down a squeeze bunt. The Panthers added a run on an RBI triple by Traxton Mattingly.

“Once we saw we weren’t necessarily knocking the ball around like crazy, we started going to small ball and it worked for us,” Newsome said. “It’s something we practice a lot. We know we’re not an all-star offensive team one through nine. We have some guys who can swing it and some guys are hotter than others.

“During the season, you just kind of ride that roller coaster, but at any point, we could bunt one through nine. We’ll play small ball if we have to. You just have to adjust to your personnel and who’s hot and who’s not.”

The Panthers improved to 15-9.

“We have plenty of room to improve and that’s what we’re going to do,” Newsome said. “We’re going to keep trying to get better. You always want more as a player and as a coach. That’s what drives a lot of these guys is just showing up every single day trying to improve. Hopefully the third week of May things are rocking and rolling and you can win a few in a row.”

The Trojans fell to 10-10. In Eustice’s first season as head coach, Mendota is ahead of last year as the Trojans finished 9-18-1 in 2025.

“We’ve improved a ton,” Eustice said. “We got win No. 10 (Thursday), which was important to us. We’ve won four conference games (after one last season). We have two weeks left now to build up to the postseason. We have a pretty good pitching core, we played pretty good defense and our hitting has been pretty good overall this year. I think we can compete with just about anybody and we proved that tonight.”

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Putnam County's Johnathon Stunkel lets go of a throw to Mendota on Friday, May 8, 2026 at Putnam County High School. (Scott Anderson)