Josh Cunningham, Luke Burns lead De Smet baseball past CBC in Metro Catholic Conference opener

CREVE COEUR, Mo. – Luke Burns has seen Josh Cunningham laughing up and down the hallways throughout the day.

The De Smet senior has seen his teammate act a bit goofy when he's nowhere near a pitching mound.

But once he gets on the mound, the switch has been flipped.

"Cunningham is a dog," Burns said. "He's that guy. He's a different guy on the mound. In school, he's funny and laughing, but as soon as he steps on that mound, he's a different dude."

Cunningham was nigh-unhittable through five innings of work as De Smet shut out CBC 4-0 in the Metro Catholic Conference opener for both schools.

"They're always a tough team, they always win the MCC and to go out in the first game to get that win, it's huge," Cunningham said.

It's the first time in the last eight tries that De Smet has defeated CBC on the diamond. The last time De Smet won a game against the Cadets was a 5-3 victory on May 15, 2018.

"We're trusting our coaches," Burns said. "We've got a great group of guys, who are very talented. We trust in (Coach Tim) Canavan and we're going to get the job done."

Cunningham crafted a masterpiece against a loaded CBC lineup. After giving up a scorching single to CBC's Kaden Peer to lead off the game, the senior righty was untouchable. In five innings of work, the senior retired 14 Cadets in a row and struck out 10 without allowing a walk.

"It seemed like everything was working," Cunningham said. "I kept rolling."

Despite seeing how expertly his righty was at carving up CBC hitters, Canavan knew he was done after five innings of work.

"We put a cap on him around 75 pitches," Canavan said. "It's still early April and we're building up his pitch count up. He could have gone out there for another inning, but we thought it was the right thing to stop him there."

Cunningham handed the ball over to Jason Smith who slammed the door on the offense, picking up three strikeouts and didn't allow a hit in two innings of work.

"We have a lot of faith in Jason," Canavan said. "We have a short week this week and he agreed to come out of the pen this week to help."

The offense came in clutch in the third innings, scratching two runs across on two hits. De Smet (6-2-1, 1-0 MCC) got some insurance with a seeing-eye single from Burns in the sixth inning.

With runners at second and third and the CBC (7-7, 0-1 MCC) defense drawn in, Burns sent a see-eye single that snuck past the first basemen to score two to push the lead to 4-0.

"I was looking for an outside fastball, got it," Burns said. "Sometimes you get lucky. That's baseball sometimes."

Burns went 1-for-2 with three RBIs, while senior Quinn Argetsinger went 2-for-2 with two doubles for De Smet.

Peer was the only Cadet that recorded a hit against the two De Smet pitchers.

CBC will look to snap its four-game losing streak as it hosts De Smet in the final game of the conference series on Wednesday.

"That's why I love baseball, you don't have to sit and think about (a loss) for six days, just come right back out and do it all over again," CBC coach Mason Horne said.

CBC at De Smet baseball

Photos from Paul Halfacre