Sixth-inning rally, seventh-inning drama ends in victory for QHS baseball team

QUINCY — A seven-run outburst in the sixth inning allowed the Quincy High School baseball team to survive a tumultuous seventh inning and earn an 11-8 victory over Granite CIty on Wednesday at the QHS field.

The Blue Devils (4-3) have won three of their last four games to climb above the .500 mark.

Quincy trailed 5-4 heading to the bottom of the sixth inning when Keaton Barry led off with a single and pinch-runner Tykell Hammers stole second, took third on a wild pitch and scored the tying run on Joe Schroeder’s one-out single. A Brady Lowe single and an intentional walk to Owen Zanger loaded the bases and opened the door to a big inning.

Blake Bunch singled to bring in one run, Kyle Taylor walked to force in another, Jack Mettemeyer followed with another RBI walk and Alex Logan’s sacrifice fly ended up plating two runs to make it 10-5. An outfield error allowed another run to score.

The Warriors tried to battle back by capitalizing on the Blue Devils’ miscues.

Granite City sandwiched two singles around an error to load the bases with no outs in the seventh before an outfield error allowed a run to score. A one-out walk forced in another run, and a two-out single plated a run to make it 11-8 with the bases still loaded.

Schroeder struck out Dalton Scott to end the game and preserve the victory.

Jansen Lawson started for Quincy, allowing three unearned runs and just two hits over 4 ⅓ innings. He struck out two, but walked five. Logan struck out two and allowed two hits and two unearned runs over 1⅔ innings of relief to earn the victory.

All eight of the Warriors’ runs were unearned as the Blue Devils committed six errors.

Offensively, Lowe, Bunch and Taylor each had two hits for Quincy, while Barry belted a solo home run.

The Blue Devils travel to Rock Island on Saturday for a Western Big 6 Conference doubleheader.