Hoots Take High-Scoring Battle Over Alton

Beattie Belts Two Home Runs, Seven Total RBIs

O’FALLON, MO- Prairie Land Division rivals, the O’Fallon Hoots (27-28-, 13-15) and the Alton RiverDragons (19-35,10-18) met for one last time in the 2023 season on Wednesday, August 2, at CarShield Field. In a high-scoring affair that tallied 25 total runs between both teams, the Hoots defeated the RiverDragons 14-11.

Inside the Box Score 

• Chase Beattie hit two home runs, including a grand slam. 
• Beattie led the offense with seven RBIs.
• Brady Kindhart picked up his first hit as a Hoot, a three-run home run.
• Michael Long reached safely in all six of his plate appearances, going two-for-two with four walks. 
• Caiden Ottie tosses three and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief to close out the ballgame.

How it Happened

• The Hoots offense opened with seven runs in the opening inning. Chase Beattie hit a grand slam to score O’Fallon’s first four runs before Kindhart joined in with a three-run home run of his own
• Beattie added to his RBI total in the second inning as ripped a line drive single into center field to score Tyler Ferguson. 
• In the top of the third inning, Alton shrunk the deficit to 8-5. Erik Broekmeier, Diego Murillo and Evan Evola all delivered RBI singles to plate the first three runs before the final runs scored on a pair of wild pitches.
• O’Fallon stretched their lead back out in the bottom of the fourth inning to 11-5. Beattie drove in another run in the bottom of the fourth inning, with an RBI double that plated Michael Long. Zach Beatty then drove in Beattie and Tucker Platt on a two-run double.
• In the top of the fifth inning, the RiverDragons cut the deficit to an 11-6 ballgame as Murillo drove in a run on an RBI single. 
• Ferguson extended the O’Fallon lead to 12-6 on an RBI sacrifice fly out to score Tyson Ludwig from third base in the bottom of the fifth inning.
• Alton brought the Hoots lead all the way down to 12-11 in the top of the sixth inning. Alex Hagen, Jake O’Steen and Eli Hoerner all scored on wild pitches before Evan Evola hit an RBI groundout. Finally, the scoring was concluded as an error that allowed Drake Westcott to score.
• The Hoots offense responded in the bottom of the seventh inning as Beattie launched his second home run, a solo shot to pick up RBI number seven for himself in the game. Later in the frame, Jake Vitale tripled to score Drew Mize to bring the score up to 14-11 in favor of O’Fallon.

Up Next:

The Hoots welcome the Prarie Land Division first-half champion, Cape Catfish to CarShield Field on Thursday, August 3. First pitch is set for 6:35 p.m. CST, and coverage can be found at ofallonhoots.com, as well as the team’s Twitter (@ofallonbaseball) and Instagram (ofallonhoots).