Pekin wins No. 20 in season finale

PACKWOOD ? While not necessarily at the same time, the Pekin baseball team displayed the full arsenal of offense, defense and pitching Thursday to complete a doubleheader against Lone Tree that was suspended Tuesday.

Pekin trailed 8-1 in the fourth inning as play resumed from Tuesday night and ended up with an 8-3 loss in the opener but came back with a 7-3 win in game two. The Panthers still out hit the Lions in game one led by two doubles from Denium Reynolds and a 2-3 performance by Brady Lamb.

In the nightcap, the Pekin offense that has been red hot as of late took a back seat to the Panther pitching and defense. Starting pitcher Dalton Stone gritted out a complete game two-hitter that featured a whopping 13 strikeouts. Not to be outdone was centerfielder Brady Lamb, whose frozen rope from deep center field gunned down the potential tying run in the second inning.

Trenton Northup?s double to lead off the game followed by Stone?s error-aided trip to first base ? Lone Tree?s second of seven errors on the game ? plated the initial run to give Pekin a lead they would never give up. Northup followed up in the second inning with a line shot over the left field fence as part of a four-run inning to put the Panthers up 5-0.

From there, Stone found his groove as he didn?t allow an earned run the rest of the way to give Pekin a win in its regular season finale and set them up for the Class 3A district opener Saturday against Sigourney.

?Dalton threw the ball well and it was a gutty performance on his part. Because of that, we?re kind of set up for Saturday with Cody [Milliikin] and we still have Dalton if we need him,? said head coach Jeff Eeling. ?Offensively, in the first game, we out-hit them and lost, but we?re close. We took good swings on the ball but just didn?t hit it square.?

As Eeling noted, Stone?s complete game saves the arm of Millikin for the biggest game of the year to date on Saturday against a Sigourney squad they beat 17-7 in the only other meeting this year. The win also put the Panthers over the 20-win plateau for 2009 ? a goal Eeling set for this team from the get-go.

?20-win seasons are pretty special. That?s kind of our standard and that?s what we?re shooting for,? he said. ?Saturday, we?re going to try to come out and keep playing sound baseball, keep playing hard. It should be a good match up, and if we win by one or by 20, I don?t care.?

Saturday?s game against Sigourney will follow the Davis County and Van Buren match up slated for 5 p.m. in Packwood.