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Your Catfish Baseball News.

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO (July 21) – It was all smiles again for the Cape Catfish at home as they short gamed the River Dragons 12-2 on a beautiful night at Capaha Field in front of over 800 fans. The Garbers Best Dressed Player of the Game is new this season and is handed out each game to the “player of the game.” The ritual is that they player who won it last takes the new player to home plate and puts the Garbers Green jacket on the new winner, much like the Masters.

Friday night it could have gone to a lot of folks. Bogenpohl (MO State) had his best outing of the season pitching five strong innings, allowing one hit, two walks and striking out eight River Dragons. He also lit up the radar gun at 95 once and then broke quite a few breaking balls off at 81mph. Seven Catfish players had two hits, Hall (Lincoln Memorial University), McCarthy (University of Tennessee Southern, Carinci (Eastern Kentucky), Chrisman ( Purdue), Godsey (Belmont), Jeffries (Metropolitan CC) or Dante Zamudio who recently commited to play in the fall for the University of Cal Irvine.

As you see in the picture, Zamudio is all smiles with his second green jacket of the year. His parents are coming to town and staying a week or so and were in the air when their son had his best offensive night of the summer. Looking a lot like the old Dante before his freak injury last year that ended his summer. Zamudio tripled in the 2nd inning and scored and then hit a two run bomb in the 3rd that plated two more runs. “It’s nice to see Dante heating up as we will certainly need his depth down the stretch,” said Catfish Skipper Scott Little. Indeed they will as the Catfish normal RF Jeff Clarke is gone this weekend to a wedding he is in and then Sunday will be Brody Chrisman’s last regular season game for the Catfish.

Chrisman has been a key piece to the success of the Catfish 32-14 start and their first half dominance that netted them a home playoff game August 6th. The hopes are that Chrisman who is going back for school reasons will be able to rejoin the team around playoff time. Regardless, that’s why Zamudio is such an important piece.

Another hot bat as of late is Kaden Jeffries who went 2-4 and scored a run and had an rbi last night. His average is only .228 but the last 5 games he’s batting over .400 and has been smashing the baseball. Even his outs are loud. The Catfish seem to be clicking pretty well on offense and if they can keep the pitching here and healthy, they’ll be a tough out in the playoffs.

The Catfish scored often and early in this contest. They put up a 5 spot in the 2nd inning when Godsey led off the inning with a bomb to left field, his third of the season. Zamudio followed with a triple to left center, Jeffries grounded out scoring Dante. Hall walked, McCarthy singled, Carinci singled in Hall, Chrisman singled in K-Mac and a throwing error on a steal attempt allowed Carinci to score. When the second inning ended it was 5-0 Catfish and you knew that’s all they would need the way the local Jackson, MO star Caden Bogenpohl, recent Semoball winner was throwing.

The Catfish brought in Kolten Poorman (Eastern Illinois) who has cleaned up some games and done a great job this season to close out the last two innings. For the first time this year he gave up runs. a double and home run back to back and then he settled in and shut the door on Alton preserving the short game win and sending 800+ Catfish fans home with smiles. Just like all of the players!

GAME NOTES: The Catfish play Saturday (6:35) and Sunday (4:35) against the Normal Cornbelters. In something you won’t witness very often, the Catfish will face an ambidextrous pitcher. Meaning he’ll throw left handed to left handed batters and right handed to right handed batters. He’s a freshman out of Lafayette, Indiana making his first start of the season. Come on out and catch some great baseball. Sugar Chis is in the park for the first time and Kelly the Clown will be making balloon animals.

As always tickets are on sale on line at capecatfish.com. Gates open tonight at 5:30pm.