Tigers silence East Newton, advance to district champ.

A change of venue and two-day wait proved ineffective in throwing the Nevada High School baseball team off its game.

After their semifinal match was rained out Saturday and moved from Seneca to Joe Becker Stadium in Joplin, the no. 1-seeded Tigers took care of no. 5 East Newton 8-0 Monday to advance to the Class 4 District 12 championship.

Senior pitcher Elijah Nadurata silenced Patriots for the first five innings before handing the ball off to fellow senior Lane Wilson, who struck out six of the seven batters he faced over the final two frames.

Nadurata also helped kickstart Nevada’s offense when he reached on an error in the bottom of the first, allowing Eli Cheaney (who led off with a base hit and stole second) to score.

The Tigers scored four more in the third on singles by Cade Beshore and Wilson and an infield fly by Drake Ketterman that was dropped.

Sophomore Case Sanderson blasted his sixth home run of the season in the fourth (a solo shot) to put Nevada up 6-0, before the Tigers added two insurance runs in the fifth.

Weather permitting, they will play no. 2 Seneca (which beat no. 3 Mt. Vernon 7-1 earlier in the day) in the district championship at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.