Mexico just couldn’t quite catch up to Hannibal on Thursday night.

Mexico vs Hannibal Photo Gallery

The Bulldogs dropped their first North Central Missouri Conference game of the season with a 3-2 loss at home. Their lineup finished with eight strikeouts and five hits as Hannibal was taken deep into the game by Colton Dryden, who had seven strikeouts, five walks, three hits and one unearned run in 6⅓ innings.

“Dryden was hitting that outside corner and just kept on going out and out,” head coach Daniel McCarty said. “That pitcher kept on testing it, and the umpire kept on giving it so our guys kept on chasing.”

McCarty said the Bulldogs (4-5, 1-1 NCMC) tried their best to “protect the zone” in the scoring situations they had in front of them. Their biggest one happened in the sixth inning, with Hannibal (5-4, 1-0 NCMC) clinging to a 2-0 lead with the bases loaded and no outs. Weak ground balls from bats reaching gave the Pirates some out, but one rolled past the pitcher for Brady Fox’s RBI groundout.

Fox opposed Dryden on the mound and only had one inning that blew up for him in the third. He allowed two well-struck RBI hits by Dryden and Kane Wilson to give up two runs but was clean the rest of his six innings with six strikeouts, five hits, two earned runs and two walks. The umpire was consistent in giving Fox outer-half strike calls so he used his breaking ball and other arsenal to catch the Pirates looking sometimes.

“He started to find his command about the third or fourth inning,” McCarty said. “He started getting in the groove and getting the feel for his pitches. That helped our pitching rotation because we have one (today) and two on Monday.”

Drew DeMint and Landon Hilderman singled in the first inning for Mexico, but neither scored. Fox singled and Tyson Carr walked in the fifth inning only to be left on base. The Bulldogs walked twice and reached via an error in the sixth inning, but Hannibal stepped on home plate for a forceout and ended the threat with a groundout after exchanging an out for a run.

McCarty said the start by Mexico was “sluggish” and was hoping to see the big hit happen, but Hannibal wriggled out of trouble several times.

“In the first inning, we got two hits, but they weren’t timely hits, so to speak,” McCarty said. “Towards the middle innings, we started to slow down a lot and lose focus and overswing, pushing hands to the ball. I was waiting for the situational hitting to come through, but it didn’t.”

DeMint didn’t have the best game at the plate and allowed the game-winning RBI hit to Waylon Anders in the seventh inning on a softly hit ball to center field. However, DeMint made several plays that prevented Hannibal’s lead from growing even more.

First, DeMint made a diving catch in center field with a runner on base, and in a later inning, he robbed Dryden of another extra-base hit by making a catch at the wall before Hannibal gained more baserunners in the inning. It didn’t stop when DeMint took the mound as he picked off the runner at first to erase the Pirates’ leadoff single in the seventh inning and limit the potential damage.

“He leapt to the occasion as far as helping himself out by getting out of those tough situations,” McCarty said. “Yeah, he did give up that one run on a hit, but it wasn’t a hard hit. He did battle back, and he made those plays defensively.”

Mexico goes for a quick conference turnaround at 5 p.m. today at Kirksville (5-2, 0-2).