Baseball: Dixon defense rocks, offense rolls in shutout win over Winnebago

DIXON – The Dixon Dukes jumped on the Winnebago Indians with a two-run second inning Thursday evening at Veterans Memorial Field. With a seven-run fifth inning and stellar defense throughout, they finished off a 9-0 Big Northern Conference win.

Defensively, the Dukes were on point all game, fielding grounders and fly balls to the infield and outfield, limiting errors, and getting a couple of strikeouts from junior pitcher Max Clark.

“The defense was insane. The defense was really good,” Dixon junior infielder/outfielder Quade Richards said. “Max was throwing strikes, doing unbelievable. He came back [to the lineup], did a hell of a job on the bump, and that’s really what we needed to keep them to zero runs.”

[ Photos from Dixon vs. Winnebago baseball ]

Clark worked out of jams in the first and third innings, with runners on first and third both times.

In the bottom of the second, Dixon took a 2-0 lead. With one out, Richards ripped an RBI triple just inside the right-field line, scoring Ari Selmani, then after diving safely into third and seeing a throwing error, he got up and came home for the second run.

“It felt good, especially coming out of a slump,” Richards said. “That gave us a little life, and it’s what we needed to continue on throughout the game.”

Clark worked a 1-2-3 inning in the fourth, then got out of another jam in top of the fifth with the help of a nice and field and throw from third base to home by Selmani for the second out.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Dukes piled on seven more runs.

Alex Harrison sparked the rally, hammering a two-run double to left for a 4-0 lead. After a Clark walk, Quentin Seggebruch crushed his own two-run double to left, expanding the Dixon lead to 6-0.

“When we scored those [first few] runs, we knew we were good, but we still had to keep going and put more runs on the board,” Harrison said.

After a pitching change, Selmani was hit by a pitch. Richards then ripped an RBI single to left. A James Leslie walk loaded the bases, then Kyan Adkins smacked a two-run single down the left-field line for a 9-0 lead.

Clark worked another 1-2-3 inning in the sixth, then induced two groundouts in the seventh before Richards came on to strike out the final batter.

“Max did a great job throwing strikes, he’s been working on it all year,” Harrison said. “The defense, we tell him to throw strikes, let them put the ball in play, and we’ll do the work. And on defense, I feel like that’s what we did. We fielded the ball cleanly and made the outs.”

Richards went 3 for 3 with two RBIs, Harrison was 3 for 4 with two RBIs, Seggebruch went 2 for 4 with two RBIs, and Adkins went 2 for 3 with two RBIs for the Dukes.

Clark pitched 6 2/3 scoreless innings for Dixon, allowing four hits, and striking out two with two walks.

Alec Weavel went 3 for 4 to lead the Indians.

“We gotta play cleaner. [Dixon coach] Jason [Burgess] always has his guys ready, they’re a good ballclub, year in and year out,” Winnebago coach Ron Adams said. “I don’t want to make excuses. We kicked the ball around a little bit, and we’re extremely young. At times, we have five sophomores in our starting lineup. The best for us is yet to come, but we want it to come tomorrow. I’m still proud of our guys. They’re young and they’re learning. The growth process is not always a beautiful thing, and you gotta grow. We’ll get there.”