Behrends sets program record with 22 Ks vs. Patoka

VANDALIA – Senior Jacob Behrends had the best pitching performance of his career in leading Brownstown/St. Elmo to an upset win in the title game of the Egyptian-Illini Conference Tournament.

Behrends struck out a program-record 22 batters during a 3-0 win against the top-seeded Warriors, leaving both coaches in the game unsure of how to adequately describe his outing.

“He was something else tonight,” said Patoka coach Joey Eddy. “We have hit him in the past, but I have never seen him like that.

“He was composed and he threw harder – I bet he was throwing 8-10 miles per hour faster than last year,” he said. “He didn’t have to mix (pitches) in, because he lived on that outside corner and we let him.”

Added Bombers coach Ryan Beccue, “I don’t even know what you say about that.

“You definitely know when Jake is pitching that it gives us a great chance to win,” he said. “The 22 strikeouts are above and beyond what you’d ever expect.”

Every out that Behrends recorded came via the strikeout, with the only two fair balls hit going for singles, and he also struck out four in the second inning when Patoka’s Shane Cain reached first base when the third strike went as a passed ball.

He needed just three pitches for his five of his strikeouts, and struck out the side in five of the seven innings.

Prior to last Thursday’s outing, he had 30 strikeouts on the season.

The record establishes a mark for the Brownstown/St. Elmo co-op that will be difficult to match, and bests the previous record for each individual school.

“Our record was (19), and he blew that thing out of the water,” Beccue said. “I didn’t think it would be touched.”

Behrends got better as the game went on, surrendering singles in the second and fourth innings, and a walk in the fourth, before striking out the final 11 batters of the game.

In between the hits, he struck out eight straight, and he wasn’t using a lot of fancy pitches to get hitters out.

“One thing I did notice is that he threw more fastballs than normal,” said senior catcher Dustin Lawson. “He was throwing pretty hard and hitting the corners.”

Behrends, who had little to say about his historic night other than that he was happy to get the team victory, is 3-3 on the season, but his losses have all come to the top teams in the National Trail Conference.

The fourth-year senior has shown a lot of growth in his time in a Bomber uniform, according to Eddy.

“He has matured,” Eddy said. “Before he might get frustrated if he didn’t get a close call, but tonight he didn’t – he just threw it a baseball-width closer to get the strike.”

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VANDALIA – After Patoka and Brownstown/St. Elmo played to a 1-0 decision in the regular-season matchup this fall, everyone expected the rematch in last Thursday’s Egyptian-Illini Conference Tournament to be just as great.

In the end, it was probably better.

The second-seeded Bombers upset No. 1 Patoka, 3-0, getting 22 strikeouts from senior Jacob Behrends in a memorable performance that gives each a team a win against the other this fall.

“This game mirrored the other one (on Sept. 12),” said Patoka coach Joey Eddy. “At Brownstown, we threw a kid out at third to kill the momentum.

“Tonight we threw one in the dirt, and the kid scored.”

That sequence came in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Still scoreless, Brownstown/St. Elmo (8-7) got a one-out single by Dalton Parks, who moved to second base on a passed ball.

Behrends then hit a weak dribbler to the shortstop, but an errant throw allowed Parks to come home for the first run of the game, and Landon Feezel followed with an RBI single.

“We have had some issues getting timely hits,” said Bombers coach Ryan Beccue. “We have been working hard at hitting the baseball and talking a lot about cutting down our strikeouts by putting good swings on pitches.”

Another error and a single by Elijah Austin loaded the bases again, but Patoka senior Johnnie Clift struck out the final two of the inning to escape the situation.

He was the winning pitcher on Sept. 12, and pitched well enough to win last Thursday, striking out 13 in a complete-game effort for the Warriors (9-4).

Brownstown/St. Elmo scored its last run on a suicide squeeze bunt by Parks in the seventh inning.

Patoka, meanwhile, managed just a pair of singles off of Behrends, who didn’t allow any other batted balls into fair territory as he hurled what Eddy said was the best high school pitching performance he had ever seen.

The game pretty well ends Patoka’s season – the Warriors closing a year that has seen a lot of players forced into new roles because of injuries.

“We have battled through a lot of adversity,” Eddy said. “We lost our No. 1 pitcher, and lost a few others guy, so it’s been a flow of guys stepping up to battle.”

The Bombers will continue play throughout the National Trail Conference Tournament, which concludes this weekend.

Thursday, Sept. 26
BSE 3
Patoka 0
B: 0-0-0-0-0-2-1—3-6-1
P: 0-0-0-0-0-0-0—0-2-3
WP: Behrends; 7 IP, 22 K
LP: Clift, 7 IP, 13 K
Bombers: Parks, 2-for-4, RBI, run, SB; Feezel, 1-for-3, RBI, BB; Elijah Austin, 1-for-2, BB, SB; Drake Hall, 1-for-2, BB; Levi Maxey, 1-for-3, BB, run; Behrends, run; Noah Flowers, sac bunt.
Record: 8-7
Warriors: Ryan Miller, 1-for-2, BB, SB; John Houston, 1-for-3; Shane Cain, SB.
Record: 9-4