Last Monday the Musketeers welcomed in the Nashville Hornets in what could be a Regional Final preview. This preview did not go well for the home squad. Red Bud struggled in all three objectives of the game. Their pitchers struggled to throw strikes, the defense did not make the routine plays, and the hitting was not effective against the Hornet’s pitching staff. Red Bud was not ready for this contest and did not show up with a positive attitude. The Hornets put up nine runs in the first four innings before exploding for ten runs in the fifth. The Hornets defeated the Musketeers 19-2.

The Musketeers bounced back the very next day when they took on the Lebanon Greyhounds. Cole Steibel took the mound for the Musketeers and like usual he did not disappoint. Steibel blew his fastball past the Lebanon hitters, and fooled them with his curveball in the later innings. He was on top of his game, and he got the proper run support to back him up. In the first inning the Musketeers got some traffic on the bases having the bases loaded, and scoring on passed balls and defensive miscues by the Lebanon fielders. The highlight hit of the game came in the top of the third inning. Down in the count 0-2, Alex Birchler launched a deep fly ball over the left-center fence for his first homerun of his high school career. The Musketeers would sit on six runs till the top of the third inning when they tacked on three more to grow the lead to as large as 9-0. The closest the Greyhounds got to recording a hit occured when the batter roped a line drive to the right fielder, Blake Cowell, who charged the ball hard and gunned the runner out attempting to reach first base. Steibel would not let up any hard contact after that, and would propel the Musketeers to a 9-0 victory. Cole Steibel allowed no hits, no runs, and struck out 17 batters.

The Musketeers enter their final week of regular season play when they take on the Gibault Hawks on Monday, Roxana on Tuesday, New Athens on Thursday, and close out their week in Trico on Friday. The Musketeers also have earned the fifth seed in the Harrisburg Sectional, and will be playing their opening Regional game against Trico on May 17 in Pinckneyville.