The Charleston High School baseball team threw a combined no-hitter in a 9-1 win over Shelbyville on Friday at Baker Field.  

Sophomore Wyatt Gordon threw 101 pitches in six innings, and only allowing one run. Senior Phoenix Lofton would be brought in the top of the seventh striking out the final batter to complete the combined no-hitter.

“It was a much-needed game for us,” Charleson head coach Daniel Bennett said. 

Bennett said that the days of practice leading up to the game helped the team. 

“We just got back to the fundamentals. We worked on a lot, pitcher covering drills, we worked on communication drills, we had a mental toughness drill, just getting kind of getting their minds focused and back to basics,” Bennett said.  

After Shelbyville scored in the first inning Charleston scored nine unanswered runs. 

Sophomore Russell Applegate would put Charleston on the board with an RBI single. He would go on to set a season-high for RBIs in a game with five.  

“We’ve been on kind of a drought lately, but we really brought the bats to life and the defense was there after we’ve been working all week,” Applegate said. 

Senior Burk Anderson hit a ground out which scored a runner to give the Trojans a 2-1 lead after the first inning. 

Applegate would record his second RBI with a single in the third inning which was followed by Gordon’s sacrifice fly to make it 4-1.  

The next inning saw the Trojans score five runs. 

Junior Alex Matheny scored off a wild pitch and senior Corbin Parker hit an RBI single. 

In the largest play of the game, Applegate hit a three RBI triple to give the Trojans a 9-1 lead which they would hold for the remainder of the game. 

“It felt really good,” Applegate said. “I needed something big like that to happen; it really helped,” 

Said Shelbyville head coach Sam Mehl: “We didn’t play well, pretty bad all the way around, didn’t hit well and didn’t do much of anything well,”  

Next week, Charleston has four road games in a row with three coming in three days. The Trojans face reigning Apollo Conference champions Mahomet-Seymour in a doubleheader on April 19. 

“We’re lucky we get four games before then because that’s one we want to go get,” Bennett said. “We got to be road warriors.” 

The Trojans’ win is the first since opening day, when they beat Champaign Centennial on March 17. 

“I think tonight was helpful,” Bennett said. “We’re going to have good vibes on the bus tomorrow going to Mount Vernon and hopefully shorten the trip.” 

Charleston’s next game is against Mount Vernon on Saturday.  

“You got to ride off the wins,” Applegate said. “Just be as positive as possible.” 

Jason Coulombe can be reached at 581-2812 or at jmcoulombe@eiu.edu.