Pitching? Check.

Defense? Check.

Mexico vs Battle Photo Gallery

Offense? Mexico eventually had plenty of that on Friday at home in its 11-0 six-inning victory against Class 6 Battle. The Bulldogs scored only one run in their first 10 innings of the day, including through a 4-1 loss to Class 5 Capital City, but closed the day and regular season with a two-RBI walk-off double from lone senior Ashton Belcher.

"It started becoming contagious," head coach Daniel McCarty said. "Once we started realizing, 'Oh, we can hit,' all of sudden, it became a contagious wheel."

McCarty said pitching and defense was once again there for Mexico (15-16) as it has been all season. The Bulldogs have allowed 3.5 runs per game for an eight-season low and allowed four runs through two games on Friday. 

Offensively, the Bulldogs have been slightly better than last season at 4.9 runs per game but have struggled against some tough pitching, including Capital City's Blake Holtmeyer. Holtmeyer struck out 11 and allowed three hits in seven innings against Mexico.

In the fourth inning against Battle (8-23), Mexico struck with two doubles in the inning. Austin Maxwell drove in two runs with a double for a 2-0 lead that doubled to a 4-0 lead the next inning with a Drew DeMint two-RBI single. A seven-run sixth inning shut the door on the Spartans.

"We executed the small things, like going base to base," McCarty said. "We don't need home runs, but we need base to base. We had guys doing the extra stuff on the reads, secondary reads and we had guys putting bunts in play that we haven't done in a while."

Runners were consistently moved over for Mexico, even in the innings the offense didn't score. The Nos. 1-4 hitters -- Brady Fox, DeMint, Jaydon Eldridge and Sam Ryan -- each had two hits. DeMint led the team with three RBI, and Maxwell and Belcher each followed with two RBI.

"It's a blessing for real," Belcher said about his walk-off double. "I've been trying to work toward it. It was a good-fought game by both teams, but we came out of our outer shell and pulled through."

Belcher said the team wanted to put Battle away in the sixth inning. It all started with Belcher reaching on an infield error and snowballed for Battle the rest of the way. The Bulldogs took their runs on a wild pitch and sacrifice fly by Fox before the final five batters reached base even with two outs on the scoreboard.

McCarty said Mexico adjusted better against Battle than it did against Capital City (21-11) and Holtmeyer, who he described as "a good velocity guy." 

"We just didn't make the small adjustments as needed," McCarty said. "We didn't attack versus sit back and wait for the perfect pitch."

McCarty said the Bulldogs have pitchers to go up against high-caliber arms that they are likely to see at the start of the Class 4 District 8 tournament at Southern Boone in Ashland. They will face fourth-ranked Father Tolton (19-8) at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday.

Ryan and Kaden Benne each struck out four against Battle, with Ryan going 4 1/3 innings. Maxwell and Eldridge had a combined effort against Capital City, allowing four hits total. 

"Today's game really helped us on the offensive side," McCarty said. "Our pitching and defense has been stellar all year so far. That will prevail us to give Tolton a run for their money."

McCarty said his kids are "calm and collected" after playing over 30 games and hitting their goal of 15 wins this season. After checking that goal, he said Mexico wants to check its next goal of a district championship.

Belcher said he and the other kids feel good after defeating bigger school Battle that played one or two extra-inning games against the likes of state-ranked Fatima and Blair Oaks and Capital City, winning the latter 4-2 in nine innings. The Bulldogs feel ready for state-ranked Tolton.

"We thought Battle was going to be a tough team coming in," Belcher said. "Maybe we'll have Father Tolton step up too and pull something off like this."