TERRE HAUTE —
The 30-victory mark, a significant number for a summer of American Legion baseball, has become virtually an annual event for Wayne Newton Post 346, and the Terre Haute team achieved it again Friday afternoon in a first-round regional victory over Seymour Post 89 at Don Jennings Field.
The 30-run mark isn’t nearly as common, but the local team nearly did that too, finally “settling” for a 27-4 win. Post 346 is back in action at noon today at Terre Haute North, where another win would send it to Sunday’s regional championship round.
Thanks to a gale-force wind blowing from the left-field foul pole to the right-field foul pole, and thanks to the fact that the Post 346 batters are good listeners, the host team — visitor on the scoreboard Friday — was never threatened. And no one listened better, or took better advantage of the wind, than first baseman Sam Wolf.
“We are always preaching to hit the ball back up the middle,” Post 346 manager John Hayes said, “and I told Sam [after the game], ‘Look at the good things that happen when you hit it the other way.’ ”
The good things for Wolf, a right-handed batter, resulted in a 5-for-5 game with two home runs riding the jetstream to right — a three-run homer in the six-run first inning, a grand slam in the 13-run third frame — and a whopping 11 RBIs. No one could be certain if that was a Post 346 record, but Wolf was pretty sure it was a personal one.
“I think I’ve had a couple games with four or five [RBIs],” he said afterward, “but nothing like today.”
And the wind, Sam?
“It was great,” he said with a smile. “All you had to do was put a little pepper on the ball to the right side of the field.”
The weather was in play immediately. Kodie Girton led off the game with a walk, stole second and scored when Scott West’s fly to right blew away for a double.
Dalton Sexton hit a hard line drive to left — the wrong way, on this day — that was knocked down for a routine out, but Tony Rosselli singled ahead of Wolf’s seemingly soft liner the other way that never came down. After a second out, Zach Milam drew a walk and Preston Tofaute hit a ball to right field — off his fists, it appeared — that also left the park, and it was 6-0.
Seymour’s first two batters got hits in the bottom of the inning, one of them also a wind-blown fly to right, to get runners at first and third with none out. Post 89 eventually loaded the bases, but Wayne Newton pitcher Jimmy Maxwell got a pair of strikeouts and kept the ball out of the air the rest of the inning to escape unscathed.
Post 346 got two more runs in the second — West getting another double and Wolf and Cody Thornton run-scoring singles — and Maxwell started a double play to escape a first-and-second, none-out jam in the bottom of the inning.
And then the game got way out of hand. Post 346’s 17-batter inning in the third included both the grand slam and a two-run single by Wolf and four consecutive bases-loaded walks ahead of Wolf’s single. Wayne Newton added four more runs in the fourth — including an RBI single by Wolf — and two more in the fifth before going scoreless in its last two at-bats.
West and Rosselli also were perfect at the plate — West 3 for 3 with two doubles, four runs and three RBIs and Rosselli with just the one hit but with three walks and four runs — and Tofaute had four hits, four runs and three RBIs.
“You always wasnt to go out and score as many as you can,” said Wolf when asked if his team should have saved some of the runs for the remainder of the tournament. “When our whole team is seeing the ball like we are right now, we just want to keep this momentum and ride it as far as we can.”
After Maxwell retired nine batters in a row, Seymour finally put four hits and a walk together after two outs in the bottom of the fifth to get on the scoreboard, and added another run in the sixth. But, as Hayes pointed out, a wind-blown foul ball that probably should have been caught would have gotten Maxwell out of the fifth inning without a run scoring.
“I was tickled with the way [Maxwell] threw,” the manager said. “That set our pitching staff up pretty good for the rest of the tournament.”
• St. Leon 9, Floyds Knobs 8 — In Friday’s second game, the winning run scored on a balk call in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Floyds Knobs (18-10) tried to escape a bases-loaded situation with the hidden-ball play after a conference on the mound, but the pitcher stepped on the rubber without the ball, which is illegal.
St. Leon (9-18) plays Wayne Newton Post 346 at noon today, with Floyds Knobs meeting Seymour at 3:30. Winner of the noon game advances to Sunday’s championship round.
Post 346 27, Seymour 4
Post 346 ab r h bi Seymour ab r h bi
Girton lf 1 3 0 1 Hill ss-p 3 1 2 0
Pierce ph-lf-2b 3 1 2 2 Belcher cf 4 1 3 1
West ss 3 4 3 3 Burton c 4 1 1 0
Decker ss 3 1 1 2 Pardieck 3b-ss 2 1 0 0
Sexton dh 3 1 1 1 Kirtley 1b 4 0 1 2
Lannoo ph-dh 3 0 1 1 Rivera lf 4 0 1 1
Maxwell p-1b 0 0 0 0 Rayburn p-3b 3 0 1 0
Rosselli rf 1 4 1 1 Goforth rf 2 0 0 0
Rupska rf 2 0 0 0 Richey 2b 3 0 0 0
Wolf 1b-3b 5 2 5 11
Thornton cf 3 1 2 2
Nacke cf 2 0 1 0
Milam 3b-lf 4 3 2 0
Tofaute c 6 4 4 3
Marlow 2b-p 3 3 2 0
Totals 42 27 25 27 Totals 29 4 9 4
Post 346 62(13) 420 0 — 27
Seymour Post 89 000 031 0 — 4
DP — Post 346 1, Seymour 3. LOB — Post 346 9, Seymour 8. 2B — West 2, Milam, Pierce, Hill, Marlow. HR — Wolf 2 (5), Tofaute (1). SB — Girton, Rosselli.
IP H R ER BB SO
Wayne Newton Post 346
Maxwell (W 5-1) 6 9 4 4 3 4
Marlow 1 0 0 0 0 0
Seymour Post 89
Rayburn (L) 2 1/3 10 14 14 8 0
Hill 4 2/3 15 13 13 6 2
WP — Maxwell 2. HBP — by Maxwell (Pardieck). T — 2:04.
Next — Wayne Newton Post 346 (30-10) plays at noon today against St. Leon. Seymour (6-7) plays Floyds Knobs in an elimination game at 3:30 p.m.
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