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Baseball: Yount, Becht lead UT to sweep

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By Christopher Maloney | Thursday, May 01, 2008 |

United Township used strong pitching and defense to sweep host Rock Island 3-0 and 1-0 in Western Big Six baseball Saturday.

Garrett Yount (5-2) started the day by giving up just four hits. He got into trouble when the Rocks put two men on to lead off the third, but he induced a double play before getting a strikeout to end the threat.

The Panthers loaded the bases twice in the first game and took advantage of it in the fifth inning. Panther leftfielder Evan Allmendinger hit a grounder to short to bring in the first run and then a pair of errors led to the other two UT runs.

In the second game, Becht (2-2) had eight strikeouts while giving up just three hits. Panther catcher Julio Riojas’ one-out single to left drove in the game’s only run. The Rocks got a man to second with one out in the final inning but a strikeout and flyout ended that threat and completed the sweep.

“We have two horsemen that pitched lights-out today,” Panther coach Scott Harding said. “We started out too slowly to be a part of the conference title race but we have won four of our last five in turning things around. Hopefully, we will get our bats going by then as well. (Rock Island coach) Andy Campbell always calls a great game. With the Rocks, you have to beat them on your own for they won’t beat themselves.”

Yount said it was the Panthers’ strong defense that made the sweep possible.

“Adam and I pitched well but we also had great defense,” he said. “Mike Park and Davian Giles were huge defensively behind us today. If our pitching and defense keeps up like it has these past two weeks, I like our chances going into the conference tournament.”

— Chris Maloney