AURORA, Mo. — The Carthage Tigers scored seven runs in the sixth inning to run-rule the Hillcrest Hornets 11-1 in Friday’s matchup of the Roy B Shaver Classic Tournament in Aurora. Carthage has now doubled their win total from all of last season in their first seven games.
Langston Morgan went 3-4 for the Tigers, singling in the first inning, doubling in the third inning and singling in the sixth inning. Morgan also drove in two and scored a run.
Hillcrest opened the scoring in the first inning on a ground out, but that’s as far as they would get. The rest of the scoring came from the Tigers.
Eider Lyckman (1-0, 3.50 ERA) earned the win for Carthage. He scattered two hits over three innings, allowed one unearned run and struck out two.
“We told Eider we needed him to start by getting nine outs and he did a great job,” Carthage Head Coach Kevin Burgi said. “When his changeup is working like it was, he can be really good.”
Clay Conness and Colson Brust combined for three innings of shutout in relief to help improve the pitching staff to an impressive 0.94 ERA on the season.
“Clay came in and found a way to get a zero,” added Burgi. “Brust showed signs during his second time on the mound this year. I thought our three arms did a great job putting out fires.”
The Tigers finished with 10 hits in the game. Taylor Stevens-Diggs collected two hits – a single and a double – in three at bats and Kayleb York finished with two hits, two RBIs and scored two runs.
Blayne Lilienkamp, Ethan Stark and Lyckman also had hits for the Tigers.
“Really happy with how we plugged away in the batter’s box today,” Burgi said. “I thought we had several players make an adjustment and that played a big part in our success late in the game.”
Carthage (6-1) travels to Neosho to wrap up the Shaver Classic against Neosho in the third-place game at 3 p.m. Saturday.
