ALTON – In the end, it meant little to the Alton River Dragons, but everything to the Springfield Lucky Horseshoes.
And as a result, the Horseshoes will make a return trip to Hopkins Field for all the marbles.
The Lucky Horseshoes retained a 6-5 win over the River Dragons at Lloyd Hopkins Field on Saturday night to claim the second half of the Prairie Land Division title in Prospect League play. So, Springfield returns to Alton on Sunday to play the River Dragons for the Prairie Land Division title in a one-game playoff game at The Hop.
In Saturday’s regular season finale, the Lucky Horseshoes needed a win and the Cape Girardeau Catfish held their fate in their own hands. With a Cape loss at home to O’Fallon (Mo.) Hoots, the Horseshoes won the title in the second half to face the Sunday division title
The Lucky Horseshoes (27-33 overall, 15-14 in the bottom half), won their last four games and were 1.5 games behind the Catfish with two games left this weekend, having only played one of their two games with to win the Hoots. But O’Fallon crushed the party with two wins and Springfield, who defeated Alton 9-3 at home on Friday, came to Alton and won with a win to win the division by half a game and extend the season.
The River Dragons were Prairie Land Division champions for the first half of the season and with an overall record of 32-28, 14-15 in the second half.
The winner of Sunday’s 6:35 PM game at Hopkins Field will face the winner of the Great River Division title game between the Normal CornBelters and Quincy Gems for the Western Conference title on Tuesday. Should Alton win, it will host the match. A win in Springfield sends the Lucky Horseshoes to Normal or Quincy.
Alton scraped and clawed and fought Sturday to the end, but stranded runners on first and third to end the game.
“I don’t think it matters if it’s a preseason game, a scrimmage or just a video game, I think these guys want to fight and they want to compete and they’re definitely not giving up,” said Alton manager Darrell Handelsman. said. “We’re definitely not giving up. Our hearts and their tenacity, whatever you want to call it, is so impressive to me and that’s another reason why I have to stand up for them and fight for them because they’re playing and fighting like this now hard.
“The game somehow didn’t matter to our standings, but I think they’re just proud of how they play and I really respect that and I’m really proud of them.”
What could have been a struggle to finish the season turned into an unfortunate and extremely poor decision by an umpire crew and home place umpire Aaron Ashlock.
In the top of the eighth with a runner on third base and one out, Springfield’s Nolan Self chopped a ball down the third baseline. River Dragons third baseman Gunnar Doyle loaded the ball and when realizing he could never throw Self out initially and score a run, he stepped aside and let the ball go past him, and the ball landed foul when short stop Ethan Kleinheider clearly touched the ball and what should have been decided as a dead ball and foul ball. But Ashlock didn’t call, sign fair or wrong and had both teams so confused at the time, but Dawson Johns, who was in third place, came in and scored and Self was in first place.
Ashlock ruled that Doyle had touched the ball in fair territory and that the runner was safe, much to Handelsman’s dismay, who would eventually be ejected from the game for not contesting the game but more or less missing the most obvious calls disputed. Handelsman said he was about to be ejected when he went to play the game under protest, and when he was thrown out and Ashlock walked away from the Alton manager, Handelsman wanted to say a few more words. At that point, umpire Preston Childers intervened and pushed the Alton manager back.
The game gave Springfield a 6-4 lead at the time, a point that turned out to be the deciding point and essentially tricked Cape out of a chance of perhaps getting into the playoffs if Alton had come back to win the game. game. The River Dragons would eventually have tied the game in the ninth inning if that run hadn’t been counted and the game had gone into extra time.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen things like that,” Handelsman said. “To my surprise, they said Gunnar touched that ball, the bouncer, because I kept waiting for his hands to go up and he never raised his hands, the umpire. I asked from the dugout, ‘Is that a foul ball,’ and he said, ‘No.’ And at that time, their runner starts running back to home plate, so then Mikey went to tag him, so I assume he’s out and they called him safe there, so I went out and asked, ‘Why is he safe? ?’ And he said, “Because he thought it was a foul ball.” And I said why is that different from a guy who hits a ball down the left field line and runs to second and our short stop says the ball was foul and it wasn’t and the guy walks off the base and we tag him .
‘Would he be out? He said, “We’re not talking about that.” I said, but that’s my point, it’s no different than that, right? …I understand he was walking back to home plate, but he has a first base coach standing next to him and telling him the ball was clearly fair. Obviously (Doyle) didn’t touch the ball, so that was the first surprise. Then they hide behind the warning just like every other time and then if you say another word, my other word, the first word I said was “I” and he threw me out before I could finish the sentence I said to wanted to protest the match. That was all, there was no more arguing.
“We were at the end and I said that if that was the decision, we would like to protest the game. And then I was sent off. The umpire put his hands on me, which everyone saw and he tried to say that I ran into him But he grabbed me and pushed me back forcefully, which is clearly unprofessional and not acceptable.
“I’ll be the first to take responsibility for my own actions. I didn’t swear, I didn’t use bad language. I have to fight and plead for my boys. I think they deserve it. It’s blatant when balls are a meter and a half wrong and being called honest, as we’ve seen, it’s hard not to sit there and say nothing.”
Alton did not use any pitchers that he will have at his disposal starting Sunday. Brady Salzman worked five innings and Mikey Hampton relieved the last four innings.
“Brady Salzman was just a blessing to find him when we did,” Handelsman said. “He’s just been excellent regardless of tonight’s results. But by even giving us five innings and giving up four runs, we stayed in the game and scored some runs there. And what about Mikey Hampton. He’s just a competitor I would take him on my team, any kind of game, sport or competition. He doesn’t give up, he doesn’t back down from anyone.
“There we had a chance to win the game in the ninth inning, what else do you expect? After watching 60 games, I didn’t really expect to see anything different.”
The River Dragons, who were outhit 13-5, gave up two singles in the game to Blake Burris, who ended the regular season with a 17-game hit streak that left Eddie King, Jr. equaled the top in the team; he also finished the league-leader with a .361 batting average and finished the league-leader in stolen bases with 47, 10 more than any other. King also finished the league with 15 home runs and fifth in batting average at .310. King was also third in the league in RBI with 49 and fifth in stolen bases with 31.
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