TERRE HAUTE —
In American Legion baseball, when you’re playing your fifth game in four days, a manager is at the mercy of his fifth starter.
Wayne Newton Post 346 and Evansville Pate Post 265 saw their fifth starters struggle mightily. Both teams saw their first relievers struggle too. How mightily? The score was a football-like 10-10 deadlock after five innings.
Finally, both managers found success with their second choice in relievers — Pate’s A.J. Bruner and Post 346’s Dalton Sexton — but Pate’s reliever received the better defensive support over the final two innings.
To wit, Evansville Pate plated two unearned runs in the top of the seventh inning to defeat Post 346 12-10 in the championship game of the Terre Haute Invitational at a sun-drenched Jennings Field on Sunday.
“It’s been a long time, 2009 was the last time we won,” Pate manager Jeremy Jones said. “Proud of the effort. Last night was just a tough loss [10-6 to Post 346]. They’re our biggest rival. So to beat them in the championship game was very nice.”
“You score 10 runs, you ought to win,” Post 346 manager John Hayes replied. “As I told the kids, they competed hard all day and they never quit, kept battling. But you just can’t give good teams that many outs if you expect to win.”
Indeed, Post 346 had five errors, two of them and a high pop fly that should have been caught coming in their fateful top of the seventh inning.
Sexton tossed a 1-2-3 sixth and deserved a similar fate in the seventh. But two infield errors, a wild pitch, a bloop “single” that dropped with three defenders surrounding it, and two walks — one with the bases loaded — put Pate up 12-10.
Meanwhile, Bruner retired six of the seven batters he faced, the only hit he allowed being a two-out single in the sixth, striking out four batters to close out his second victory in the tournament.
“[Bruner] played for [Evansville] Memorial, which they went to regional this year,” Jones explained. “He was worked a lot at the end of the year so we gave him a little time off, about two weeks.
“He started on Thursday and we were worried he might have lost some velocity. But he had good stuff and we kept his pitch count pretty low, so if we needed him we could bring him back on Sunday.
“He throws a lot of strikes, has a good bite on his curveball … thought his change-up was his best pitch today.”
If you desire a game with solid pitching or crisply played action, this was not the game. Besides the eight combined errors — Pate had three themselves — there were a combined 13 — count ‘em — wild pitches.
Pate jumped out to a 4-0 lead by the top of the second. Post 346 responded with five runs in the second and three runs in the third to surge ahead 8-4. Despite a rough beginning, Post 346 starter Kodie Girton still had his team up 8-5 through four innings.
But in the top of the fifth, Girton left with no outs after a hit batsman and a single. Pete Lannoo was rudely greeted with four straight singles. So when the dust settled after 10 batters strode to the plate, Pate was up again 10-8.
In the bottom of the fifth, Bryan Nacke and Preston Tofaute had doubles and Zach Milam an RBI single to set the stage with the 10-10 tie entering the final two innings.
“Our problem wasn’t the pitching, it was the fact we didn’t make the plays on the infield,” Hayes noted. “The [seventh] inning they got the two runs, we had two errors and the pop up … I don’t know if that was an error or not … three plays that should have been made.”
Offensively, Post 346 was led by Milam, Scott West, Colton Rupska, Tony Rosselli, Nacke and Tofaute with two hits apiece.
For Pate, Reid Haefner and Bruner — the starting first baseman — had three hits apiece, Jess Conner and Landon Langley two hits each.
Post 346 (9-4) will hit the road for its next two games, playing at Washington on Tuesday, then at Crawfordsville on Thursday. They return home to face Remington in a noon doubleheader on Saturday.
Evansville 12, Wayne Newton 10
E.Pate ab r h bi W.Newton ab r h bi
McCune lf 3 2 0 0 Milam 3b 4 1 2 2
Conner c 5 0 2 2 West ss 4 0 2 2
Davis 3b 3 1 0 0 Pierce dh 4 0 0 0
Bruner 1b-p 5 1 3 1 Rupska rf 4 2 2 0
Hicks cf 4 1 1 2 Rosselli cf 4 2 2 0
Langley dh-1b 5 2 2 0 Nacke lf 3 2 2 2
Haefner ss 4 3 3 1 Maxwell 1b 3 1 0 1
Weathrbolt rf 4 0 1 1 Tofaute c 4 2 2 2
Spindler pr-rf 0 1 0 0 Decker 2b 3 0 0 1
Rounder 2b 1 1 1 1 Marlow ph 1 0 0 0
Totals 34 12 13 8 Totals 34 10 12 10
Evansville Pate 130 150 2 — 12
Wayne Newton 053 020 0 — 10
E — Davis, Hicks, Haefner, West, Sexton, Rupska 2, Decker. LOB — EP 9, WN 5. 2B — Bruner, Haefner, Milam., Nacke, Tofaute SH — Rounder, Maxwell. SF — Rounder. SB — McCune 2, Rosselli.
IP H R ER BB SO
Evansville Pate
Farmer 2 1-3 7 8 3 0 2
Rozewski 2 2-3 4 2 2 0 3
Bruner (W, 2-0) 2 1 0 0 0 4
Wayne Newton
Girton 4 6 7 6 3 8
Lannoo 1 6 3 3 0 1
Sexton (L, 1-1) 2 1 2 0 2 2
Girton pitched to two batters in 5th.
Lannoo pitched to one batter in 6th.
WP — Farmer 2, Rozewski 4, Girton 6, Sexton. HBP — by Farmer (Nacke); by Girton (Davis). T — 2:34.
Next — Wayne Newton Post 346 (9-4) is at Washington at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Evansville Pate Post 265 (11-6) competes in a tournament in Omaha, Neb. beginning Thursday.
Sports
Related Photos
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Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza Avoided the tag: Wayne Newton Post 346 catcher Preston Tofaute tries to tag Evansville Pate Post 265's Reid Haefner in time at home plate as teammate and pitcher Kodie Girton looks on during Post 346's loss Sunday at Terre Haute North High School.
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Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza Trying to keep them off base: Pitcher Kodie Girton of Wayne Newton Post 346 pitches to an Evansville Pate Post 265 batter Sunday at Terre Haute North High School.
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Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza Over the top: Second baseman Scott West of Wayne Newton Post 346 tries to throw out an Evansville Pate Post 265 runner over the head of Heath Spindler during Post 346's loss Sunday at Terre Haute North High School.
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Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza Trying to get it there: Wayne Newton Post 346's T.J. Decker hurls the ball to first base in an attempt to throw out an Evansville Pate Post 265 runner Sunday at Terre Haute North High School.
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