St. Joseph baseball overpowers Urbana

By Fred Kroner

Landon May and Hunter Cler teamed up on a one-hitter on Wednesday (Sept. 6) as the St. Joseph junior high baseball team overpowered Urbana, 21-1, in Urbana.

May pitched 1 2/3 innings and struck out three hitters. Cler worked the final 1 1/3 innings and got all four of his outs via strikeouts.

St. Joseph was held to five hits in the game, but benefitted from drawing 14 walks.

Cler drove in two runs and May also tallied a game-high three runs. Scoring two runs apiece for the Panthers were Kiptyn Rosenthal, Ike Shelato, Ryder Van Meenen, Trey Divan, Brock Franzen and Lucas Barton.

On Tuesday (Sept. 5), St. Joseph suffered an 8-5 loss at home to Champaign St. Matthew.

Rosenthal, Shelato, Van Meenen and Cler all collected two hits. May drove in two runs.

On Thursday (Sept. 7), the Panthers were outscored at home by Charleston, 14-6.

May, Rosenthal, Shelato and Van Meenen all clubbed two hits apiece. Rosenthal tallied two runs and Van Meenen drove in two runs.

On Friday (Sept. 8), St. Joseph came up a run short at Mahomet-Seymour, suffering a 5-4 loss. Rosenthal again totaled two hits.

On Saturday (Sept.9), Cler fired a three-hit shutout at Paxton-Buckley-Loda as the Panthers recorded a 16-0 victory.

He walked no one and struck out five. Cler was backed by an errorless defense.

Barton and Franzen each drove three hits and knocked in four runs. Liam Carter and May both had two RBI. Carter socked two hits as did Van Meenen.

St. Joseph stole 13 bases for the day. Van Meenen swiped four bases. Franzen had three steals and Isaiah Reynolds ended with two stolen bases.

Van Meenen tallied four runs. Tallying three apiece were Franzen and May. Rosenthal scored twice.

St. Joseph has an overall record of 9-6.  The Panthers are the No. 1 seed for an IESA Regional it will host. The team’s first game will be on Saturday (Sept. 16) against the winner of a game between fourth-seeded Fisher and fifth-seeded Oakwood.