Camels make Bernie pay for errors

CAMPBELL, Mo. -- In a typical baseball game, baserunning blunders can ultimately cost you runs and perhaps the game.

The Campbell Camels got the bases loaded on Bernie in the fourth inning and then got doubled up on a running mistake by a senior on a fly ball put out with the wind blowing in.

But with two outs, the Camels took advantage of some fielding errors by the Mules and scored six runs on their way to a 7-3 victory Wednesday afternoon at home.

A fly ball out to deep left-center by Dylan Lynn caught Camels catcher Kyle Matthews off guard as he ran to third base and was doubled off to the disliking of Campbell coach Jeff Boner.

But Matthews' teammates really picked him up on the mistake with two straight two-out RBI singles by Tyler Dean and Cody Huber.

"Him being a senior and everything he told me 'Coach, I thought it was gonna get down' with the way the wind was," Boner said of Matthews who also pitched the last two innings for the Camels. "It held up and here he is at third."

The two singles were combined with six errors by the Mules (4-1) in the fourth as Campbell (5-1) sent 11 batters to the plate and scored six runs total. All the runs were unearned off Bernie starter Quentin Stevens.

"They come out in that one inning and had six errors," Boner said. "But at least we put the ball in play, that's one thing we hadn't been doing. If we did get a guy in scoring position, we weren't moving people around."

Stevens came out of the gates strong for the Mules on the mound. The junior went through the first three innings unscathed with just one hit given up and three Ks.

"Quentin did just fine aside from the one inning where we made a couple of errors," Bernie coach Jason Long said. " The one thing I told him was we only walked three batters. He didn't pitch bad at all."

Bernie, who came into the game no with no losses on the young season, made an come back attempt in the sixth inning with two runs scored. Jake Welch scored on an error and Micah Woode then hit an RBI sacrifice fly to score Stevens to make it 7-3.

"If you take that inning away, who knows what's gonna happen," Long said. "We talk about how baseball is a funny game and we come back and play tomorrow."

As for the six-error inning, Long felt his guys can fix the problems with more games under their belts.

Senior Cale Weeks pitched a solid five innings for Campbell. Weeks held Bernie hitless the first four innings and struck out six of the first nine hitters he faced.

Campbell allowed just three hits on the game and neither team allowed an earned runs as they combined on nine errors.

Boner said that the team had do some regrouping after suffering its first loss of the season on Tuesday.

"We had a good, hard discussion the other day and they didn't like a lot of things we had to say," Boner said. "We haven't been looking like 'Campbell Baseball' so we decided we need to change a few things and change our lineup."