Moniteau was in need of strikes. Chance Nagy produced them.

When Tyler Yough was hit by a pitch leading off Karns City's seventh inning, Warriors coach Ross Martin summoned Nagy from left field to take the mound.

The sophomore right-hander retired all three batters he faced — throwing eight of 12 pitches for strikes — to preserve Moniteau's 5-4 baseball win Tuesday evening at Kelly Automotive Park.

“Chance was impressive tonight,” Martin said. 'We needed him to throw strikes and, coming in from left field, he had no opportunity to warm up in the bullpen.

“This was a great team win. I'm so proud of all of these kids.”

Moniteau (3-2) won the game despite missing six regulars due to an undisclosed school matter.

“We're a team and the rest of us had to step up for the six guys who weren't able to play tonight,” Moniteau catcher Jared Lominski said. “We did what we had to do to win.”

The Warriors snapped a 2-2 tie with three runs in the top of the fourth inning. With one out, singles by Lee DeMatteis and Tyler McFadden, and a walk to Gage Neal — the bottom three hitters in the lineup — loaded the bases.

Jake Jewart blooped a single to center to plate one run. Nagy hit into a force play to score another. The third run scored on an infield single by Josh Adamson.

“They made enough plays, got the key hits to beat us,” Karns City assistant coach Mike Woodward said. “Small ball can win games and they beat us that way.”

Lominski hit one very long ball for the Warriors. He homered to left with two outs in the third to tie the game. He had given the Warriors a 1-0 lead in the first with a two-out RBI single.

The home run was the sophomore Lominski's first high school round-tripper.

“I always dreamed of hitting a ball out of this place,” he said of Kelly Automotive Park. “That was cool.”

The Gremlins (2-1) made a run at starting and winning pitcher Jewart in the fifth. No. 9 hitter Steve O'Donnell walked, was bunted to second by Jimmy Thompson and scored on Markus Lantz's double to deep center. Yough walked and Cullen Williams delivered a run-scoring double to left.

With the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position for KC, Jewart struck out Eric Dodd and got Jace Ebbitt to pop out to shortstop to escape further damage.

Jewart worked five innings and threw 95 pitches. He played shortstop for the last two frames.

“We needed him there for defense late,” Martin said. “And there was the pitch count thing. That's going to affect a lot of pitchers and teams this year.”

Derek Brown walked a pair of Gremlins in the sixth, but Lantz popped to first to end that threat. Nagy set down Williams, Dodd and Ebbitt in the seventh to end the game.

“It's not so hard to throw strikes in high school baseball. Just pound the zone. That's what Chance did,” Lominski said.

Jewart struck out five in the first two innings, but only two in his final three frames.

“We had to adjust to his curve ball and we did that,” Woodward said. “We started timing him up a little bit. We hadn't seen a curve that good so far this year. It threw our bats off.

“We had our chances late ... just couldn't get the hit.”

Karns City coach Dave McElroy missed the game due to illness.

Moniteau 101 300 0 — 5 10 1

Karns City 020 020 0 — 4 4 1

W: Jake Jewart 5IP (7K, 4BB). L: Eric Dodd 7IP (3K, 1BB).

Moniteau (3-2): Jake Jewart 1B RBI, Chance Nagy 2-1B RBI, Josh Adamson 1B RBI, Jared Lominski HR 1B RBI, Brian Kusner 1B, Lee DeMatteis 1B, Tyler McFadden 1B, Gage Neal 1B

Karns City (2-1): Markus Lantz 2B RBI, Cullen Williams 2B RBI, Jace Ebbitt 2B, Noah Riley 1B

Thursday: Moniteau vs. Redback Valley, 6:30 p.m.; Karns City vs. A-C Valley, 4 p.m., @ Kelly Automotive Park