Mexico was in a good position to score much of the time on Friday.

Mexico vs Hallsville Photo Gallery

The same couldn’t be said about the Bulldogs’ opponent Hallsville as Austin Maxwell faced the minimum number of batters in his 73 pitches thrown in seven innings to defeat the Indians 6-0 at home. Mexico won its seventh straight game and earned its second victory against a district opponent in as many days.

The night before, Mexico (11-6) won 13-3 at Centralia, showing some dominance at the plate. The dominance against Hallsville (4-9) was on the other side of the ball, led by Maxwell’s six strikeouts, two hits and two walks and backed by the Bulldog defense that turned three double plays behind him.

“My slider was working good today,” Maxwell said. “Everything was working. I was really just throwing strikes and getting outs.”

Maxwell said he was “pretty sure” it was his best outing so far this season since his pitch count was never a concern. Head coach Daniel McCarty loved to see that performance out of Maxwell following his previous outings.

“He usually gets up in the pitch count about the fifth and sixth inning,” McCarty said. “He was stellar. He got ahead, he had his offspeed working for a strike and he was just streamlining things. He set the tone on the mound by throwing strikes and dominating the game.”

Maxwell did allow some Hallsville runners to reach, but they didn’t stay for long. In the first inning, first baseman Jaydon Eldridge started a 3-6 double play, second baseman Chance McCarty caught a weak liner before picking off the runner at first base in the third inning and then the Mexico infield turned a 6-4-3 double play in the fifth inning.

Hallsville actually led off the game with a leadoff single from Kaden Thompson, but Maxwell made it clear it was going to be a rough day on the basepaths for the Indians. Maxwell picked Thompson off and then held runners to not allow a single stolen base.

“Mixing up timing on the mound really helps get them off-balance on the basepaths,” Maxwell said. “I was just throwing strikes and letting my defense work, trusting them.”

While Hallsville was unable to advance runners, Mexico had several instances where its runner was able to take one or even two more bases to set up a scoring opportunity. The Bulldogs stole four bases and were able to take advantage of Hallsville mistakes, such as two balks by the pitcher Colton Nichols — six innings with seven hits, six strikeouts, five earned runs and two walks  — and a few errors by his defense.

Drew DeMint led the offense with his sixth multi-hit game in the past seven, going 2-for-3 with two RBI. Jaydon Eldridge and Ashton Belcher each had a RBI double, and Chance McCarty and Tyson Carr each added a RBI.

“We faced Nichols last year in districts (6-1 Mexico win) so we knew ahead of time what he had — his velocity and offspeed,” McCarty said. “He had great command tonight, but we just executed very well as far as stealing and hit and runs. We didn’t score a ton of runs tonight, but we manufactured team runs by tagging on fly balls from third.”

McCarty said Mexico “turned small ones into big ones” when it came to Hallsville mistakes. A prime example was the fourth inning that went from a quick inning to one where the Bulldogs doubled their lead to 4-0. 

Mexico didn’t have any runners on and seemed to have a 1-2-3 inning when Kaden Benne struck out, but the throw to the first baseman after the dropped third strike was also dropped. Nichols then balked to send Benne to second base, Carr hit a RBI single and took second on the throw, and then DeMint switched places with him by hitting a RBI single and taking second on the throw.

“That was crucial,” McCarty said. “That gave us some breathing room to actually play with some things as far as hitting and running and being more aggressive in ways.”

Mexico turns its attention to returning Class 3 runner-up South Callaway (5-8) at 5 p.m. Monday at home but feel like its players are geling well right now and riding high off two wins with district implications.

“We’re going on a game-to-game basis,” McCarty said. “We do have a winning streak to think about, but we’re trying to put that in the back door.”