EDWARDSVILLE - Belleville West High School improved to 14-8 overall with one of its biggest wins of the season, 2-1 over Edwardsville in eight innings on Thursday, May 8, 2025, at EHS.
The Maroons were able to come through when it counted and played well throughout.
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"A good win," said West head coach Todd Baltz. "There obviously wasn't a lot of offense today, through the eight innings, I guess, and their pitcher was on, both the older guys who came in. There wasn't a lot of offense, a few scattered hits here and there. Chase (Boente), I thought, threw well for us through his outing, then Casey (Fultz) came in and finished out the game, there, and did a nice job, throwing strikes and making some plays. That's the name of the game."
"Chase has been that way all year," Baltz said. "He's kept us in every game, I think, he's pitched. He's kind of run into some bad luck. It doesn't always show up in the box score with a win, or anything like that, but he's done enough to keep us in games, he's hard to hit, he's more of a pitcher. He's not going to overpower you, he kind of mixes it up. Thumbs up to the change-up sometimes. He's more of a pitcher, and he's done a nice job with that.
The Maroons have played fairly well all season, and West is still in contention for the SWC title, along with many other teams.
"Yeah, I think it is," Baltz said. "There are two teams at the top. (Belleville) East and Edwardsville are going to fight it out, I think. But we've been competitive, we've just come up short in a couple of games, our defense has kind of let us down early in the year, but today was a good day, and we'll just try to fix some of those things moving forward, and we'll see what happens in the postseason. We're getting down to that point, and that's really the time of the season that matters; everyone wants to be playing well at that time. So, hopefully, we're on the way to that."
The Maroons are now 14-8, and next play at Columbia on Monday, host East St. Louis on Tuesday, and Chatham Glenwood on Wednesday, with all games starting at 4:30 p.m.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
