Hoots Cap Off Perfect Road Trip With Win At Quincy

Maloney leads way with five RBIs

The O’Fallon Hoots (6-7) visited the Quincy Gems (5-10) Thursday night looking to go undefeated on their road trip. The team did so with flying colors, defeating the Gems 16-4. 

Inside the Box Score

• Mike Maloney headlined the Hoots’s offense, going 4-5 at the plate while collecting five RBIs. 
• Pierce Hartmann earned his first win of the year, allowing three earned runs in his 5.2 innings of work. He struck out four batters. 
• Ivan Dahlberg had a three-RBI night, including his first home run of the year.
• Besides Maloney and Dahlberg, Tyson Ludwig, Ethan Rossow, Jack Meyer, Mike O’Connor, and Rhett Hendricks also collected RBIs. 

How It Happened

• The first of many runs for O’Fallon came in the second. After a John Stallcup double to leadoff, Mike Maloney singled to drive in the first run of the game and give the Hoots a 1-0 lead. 
• O’Fallon struck again in the third. With Michael Long on second and Stallcup on first, Ivan Dahlberg drove Long in with an RBI single. Maloney then collected another RBI with another single, and Rhett Hendricks finished the trio of runs with a double down the left field line, scoring Dahlberg and making the score 4-0.
• More Hoots’s runs came in the fourth. Tyson Ludwig doubled and then advanced to third while Ethan Rossow reached first on a Quincy fielding error. Rossow stole second before Jack Meyer collected a base hit, scoring Ludwig. Meyer would be caught in a rundown, but caused enough of a distraction to allow Rossow to score, putting O’Fallon up 6-0. 
• Quincy finally got on the board in the next half-inning. Joe Huffman was hit by a pitch to reach first, and then Lucas Loos jacked one over the fence for a two-run shot, cutting the Hoots’s lead to 6-2. 
• Dahlberg responded to Loos’s homerun with one of his own in the top of the fifth. The O’Fallon designated hitter’s first of the year extended his team’s lead to 7-2. 
• Another Gems’s run came in the sixth. With Loos on second due to being hit by Hoots pitcher Pierce Hartmann and a wild pitch, Nathan VerMaas doubled to score Loos and bring the score to 7-3. 
• With their lead at four, O’Fallon doubled it in the seventh. Dahlberg collected another RBI single, driving in Long. Maloney then singled to score Stallcup and put Dahlberg at third. A wild pitch from new Quincy pitcher Stefan Stockwell allowed Dahlberg to cross home, and Maloney would find home on a sacrifice fly from Ludwig, making the score 11-3. 
• The final five Hoots’s runs came in the eighth. Meyer hit a triple to lead off, and Stallcup was hit by a pitch to reach first. Pinch-hitter Mike O’Connor then knocked a single through the left field side to score Meyer. Maloney doubled to drive in both O’Connor and Stallcup. After a Hendricks walk and Angelo Luna hit-by-pitch to load the bases, Ludwig flew out to center to score Maloney. Rossow singled to score another run, but Luna was thrown out on the basepaths to end the inning, Hoots leading 16-3. 
• With the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth and one out, Otto Jones was hit by a pitch from Braden Barnard and pushed Loos across home, making the score 16-4. Barnard rebounded though and got himself out of the jam, striking out the final two batters to secure the run-rule win for the Hoots, 16-4.

Up Next

These two squads will face off again Friday, June 16, this time in O’Fallon. First pitch is set for 6:35 p.m., and coverage can be found at ofallonhoots.com, as well as the team’s Twitter (@ofallonbaseball) and Instagram (ofallonhoots).