The Wright City Wildcats got out to an early 5-0 lead and responded to Montgomery County’s push in the third inning in their 10-4 win Saturday. 

Wright City (12-6) moved to 7-2 in Eastern Missouri conference games with a home win over Montgomery County. Wright City’s first seven batters reached base in the first inning, which helped Wright City score five runs in the first inning to gain the early lead. 

“That’s Wright City baseball,” Wright City senior Hayden Waters said. “We just kept chipping at it one at a time. We just kept scoring and kept producing. That’s how we play.” 

Wright City maintained their 5-0 lead until the third inning when Montgomery County scored four runs to trim Wright City’s lead to 5-4. Wright City pitcher Trey Brakensiek was able to get out of the inning with the lead despite the first five Montgomery County batters reaching base. 

“Trey did a good job,” Wright City baseball coach Ryan Raterman said. “The score says he gave up four but they weren’t hitting the ball all over the place. They were dying six feet right in front of us. He pitched really well.” 

Wright City responded in the middle innings to regain control of the game. Devin Foust scored in the third inning after Duan McRoberts got caught in a rundown between first and second with two outs. Foust scored before McRoberts was tagged out.

 “There’s nothing we can do about those,” Waters said. “They were just bloopers. We couldn’t do anything about it. And then coming back the next inning to get runs back, it felt really good to know that we were ready for whatever happens.” 

Wright City added to their lead with two runs in the fourth and fifth innings. Nick Moore scored on Jake Orf’s sacrifice bunt in the fourth inning. Pinch runner Jack Goughenour stole third base and scored after the pickoff attempt went into left field. 

Wright City added two runs in the fifth. Zach Rodriguez scored after an errant throw on a pickoff attempt. Duan McRoberts’ RBI single made the score 10-4. 

“Momentum’s a big thing in baseball,” Raterman said. “They had all the momentum. I said hey, we’ve just got to chip away. And then we chipped one away and won the next inning. And because everybody knows that we run, they tried picking us off of third and threw it into right and then we did a fake bunt steal and threw it into left. So it was just good baseball. Today was a textbook Wright City baseball win.” 

After Brakensiek threw four innings, Waters came in to pitch the final three innings. He pitched three shutout innings. Waters had not pitched for a majority of the season due to an injury. 

“I felt pretty good,” Waters said. My arm’s feeling pretty good. Woke up early today and got ready to play some baseball.” 

Wright City followed up their win against Montgomery County with a 8-7 walkoff win over St. Charles. The Wildcats beat district opponent Winfield 9-4 Monday. 

“We’ve been doing really well lately,” third baseman Nick Moore said after Saturday’s win over Montgomery County. “Playing good baseball and playing some good teams and showing out.”