Fairfield soaks out Chariton

FAIRFIELD — It was a slippery night in Fairfield on Wednesday, and the runs poured in for both the Trojan baseball team and the visiting Chariton Chargers, but a hot start was plenty enough to propel the home squad to victory.

The Trojans scored 10 of the first 12 runs of the ballgame en route to a 15-9 nonconference win.

“We needed to be ready to swing it today, and we did,” said Fairfield head coach Josh Allison. “Early in the season, we’ve been striking out too much, so that’s been our main focus the last few practices, is having a two-strike approach.”

Fairfield scored in every single one of their offensive half-innings, and Chariton was shut out in only two frames all night as the wet conditions led to run after run.

The Trojans scattered 10 runs over the first three innings. Fairfield put up three in the first, four in the second and three more in the third to take a 10-2 lead. Chariton would respond with four in the fifth to cut it to 10-7, but that’s as close as the Chargers would get.

Evan Haines went 2-for-3 with a double and three RBIs to lead the Trojans. Both Chandler Pumphrey and Nate Woodburn finished the day with a double, a single and two RBIs.

“We had a lot of hits in play,” Woodburn said. “We were lucky that they made quite a bit of errors, but that’s just putting the ball in play.”

Cason Miller and Connor Lyons each collected two hits, an RBI and three runs scored.

The Trojans used four pitchers. Tallon Bates got the win on the mound. He threw 3.1 innings, giving up six runs (five earned) on four hits, five walks and one hit batter, while striking out three.

The game lasted almost three hours and happened one day after a long and eventually weather-postponed trip to Keokuk on Tuesday night, but that didn’t seem to bother a rowdy Trojan squad.

“I think our dugout was really in it tonight,” Woodburn said. “It kept the energy up. People just kept picking up each other, and just kept going.”

Fairfield moved to 3-4 with the win. The Trojans have a busy weekend in the Southeast Conference with a home doubleheader against Fort Madison on Thursday night and a road double-dip with Keokuk on Friday.