Granite City had a runner at third base and two outs in the sixth inning of the St. Louis Amateur Baseball Association championship when the home plate umpire stopped the game and ruled the Jefferson County Blazers winner by forfeit.<\/p>\n
The Blazers won the game 4-2 and their first SLABA title since 2018 after winning the best-of-3 series in three games. The series was played July 20-22 at Lindenwood University in St. Charles.<\/p>\n
The home plate umpire had already ejected one of the Tribe coaches and a player before stopping the game. He had warned the team\u2019s dugout for arguing calls throughout the game. Granite City still had four outs and a runner in scoring position when it forfeited the game. The incident marred what was a great series, where the Tribe won game one 1-0, and in game two JC forced a decisive game by scoring four runs in the seventh of a 4-3 win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very poor sportsmanship by their coaches,\u201d said Ed Pottgen, who is the Blazers head coach and director of operations. \u201cThey (ejected player and coach) wouldn\u2019t leave the dugout when the umpire told them to. It kept going on and on, and it wasn\u2019t just this game, it was Monday\u2019s game and Tuesday\u2019s game. It had been building.\u201d<\/p>\n
GC held JC scoreless for the first 13 innings of the series. Tribe pitcher Amari Raglin twirled a six-hit complete-game shutout in game one. Blazer righthander Tyler Voss was just as good, striking out nine batters in five innings. The run he allowed was unearned. Danny Kinsey pitched two innings of scoreless relief.<\/p>\n
In game two, GC scored three runs in the fifth, and Tribe pitcher Hayden Spudich cruised to the seventh inning with a 3-0 lead, having allowed three hits and one walk.<\/p>\n
Instead of going silently into the night and season, the Blazers fought back until they had taken a 4-3 lead. Ethan French started the rally with a leadoff double. Skyler Johnson replaced French, the team\u2019s catcher, at second as a courtesy runner. Stephen Stenzhorn was walked, and both runners were advanced a base on a ground out. With one out, Kinsey\u2019s single provided JC with its first runs of the series and cut the GC lead to 3-2.<\/p>\n
Still with one out, the Tribe infield committed an error on Rayne O\u2019Daniell\u2019s hard-hit ball. Next, Cooper Horvath singled to load the bases. Kannon French\u2019s sacrifice fly plated Kinsey to tie the game, and GC made its second error of the inning on a Brody Green grounder that allowed O\u2019Daniell to score the winning run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw a first-pitch fastball and fouled it off,\u201d Kannon said of his sac fly at-bat. \u201c(Spudich) threw another fastball outside, and I took it the other way to get it in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SLABA Pitcher of the Year, Kannon French retired the Tribe in order in the seventh with two strikeouts and a ground out. Kannon pitched a complete game, fanned 10, gave up four hits and one walk and the three GC runs were unearned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat seventh inning was exhilarating,\u201d Kannon said. \u201cWe were down by three (runs) going into it. We got a big double from my brother, Ethan. We got a few guys on and took the lead. In the bottom of the seventh, I had to stay collected. If I got too emotional, I knew I was going to be wild. I needed to stay calm, hit my spots and throw strikes, and I did my job.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hit the ball well in the first two games but couldn\u2019t find any holes, and we found those gaps in the seventh and it really showed.\u201d<\/p>\n
This was Ethan\u2019s third year with the Blazers, and Kannon\u2019s first. The Frenchs live in Jefferson County. Kannon graduated from Lutheran South this spring, and Ethan will be a senior there this fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know many of the guys coming into the season,\u201d Kannon said. \u201cI knew it was a fun team, and I knew (Pottgen). Ethan played for them the last three years, and I\u2019m glad I decided to join. It\u2019s been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colton Hicks will be a senior at<\/p>\n
Hillsboro this school year. Hicks was given the ball for the start on the mound for the Blazers in the deciding game three, and while not overpowering, he was efficient in the 5 2\/3 innings the game lasted. Pottgen said Kannon was going to pitch the seventh inning had the game not been stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we knew if we could get past this inning, we were going to win,\u201d Pottgen said.<\/p>\n
The Tribe took a 1-0 lead in the first inning with two singles and a sacrifice fly by Zach Symmonds. The Blazers tied the game in the bottom of the frame when Kannon led off with a single, stole second, went to third on a ground out and scored on an RBI ground out by Landen Palmer.<\/p>\n
Hicks retired GC in order in the second, and then walked to leadoff the JC half of the inning. Johnson came in as a courtesy runner, and went to second base on a single by Jackson LaPlante. Kinsey\u2019s perfect sac bunt down the first-base line advanced both runners. Michael Huff walked to load the bases, and with two outs, Horvath drew a bases-loaded walk to give the Blazers a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Hicks sat down the Tribe in order in the third and JC doubled its lead in the inning. Green and Palmer singled to start, and with one out Green scored on an error, and with two outs, Palmer scored on a single by Kinsey.<\/p>\n
GC started the fourth by getting two base runners on with nobody out. With two outs, Hicks balked home a runner to make it 4-2.<\/p>\n
With the score the same in the sixth, Hicks walked the leadoff batter, who was at third base with two outs when the game was forfeited.<\/p>\n
The Blazers wore a patch on their shoulders this season in commemoration of Mike Sears, who died in 2025. Sears was one of the league\u2019s founders and the director of the Blazers for many years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing I thought of, was I wish Mike was here to see it,\u201d Pottgen said of the championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a diehard Blazer guy, and the one thing I wanted to do was bring a championship for this group and I told them they\u2019re all like family to me. The draw is the kids. Feeling their energy and excitement gives me a two-hour break of this madness world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Granite City had a runner at third base and two outs in the sixth inning of the St.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,2323,2314,2317,2313,94725,92692,94724,5163,1987,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,33410,1039],"class_list":["post-766063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-postseason","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-events","tag-baseball-finals","tag-baseball-games","tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","tag-forfeit-baseball","tag-granite-city","tag-guanyin","tag-illinois","tag-inning","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","tag-major-league-baseball-teams","tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-umpire-baseball","tag-world-series"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117013292146139839","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}