The Bears took the field for the final regular season and final home game tonight. The Bears’ opponent? Cross-county rival Clearwater Tigers. The Bears had a lot on the line sitting 19-0 with one final game before the post-season conference tournament. The Bears’ ace Trey McDaniel took the mound in the first; 10 pitches and 3 K’s later the Bears were heading in to grab their bats.
With first inning singles from McDaniel, Grant Miller (2 RBIs) and Ben Becker (1 RBI) the first frame ended with a 3-0 score.
That’s all McDaniel needed because he struck out 13 of 15 batters. Two Clearwater batters hit into outs and one reached on an error in the 5-inning game ended by the mercy rule (10-0). That error proved to be costly because it was all that stood between McDaniel and his first ever perfect game. (A perfect game in baseball is when a pitcher retires every batter he faces.)
McDaniel did pitch his second high school no-hitter and brought the Bears to a 20-0 perfect season.
On the day, Bears had 10 runs on 8 hits and batted .381 as a team and a .500 on-base percentage.
The Bears face off on Tuesday at 1pm against the winner of Doniphan vs Neelyville in the Ozark Foothills Conference tournament at Three Rivers College.