TERRE HAUTE —
About the only prize Kokomo Post 6 wound up with at American Legion baseball’s Terre Haute Regional was an extra day in the host city.
But whether they knew it or not, the players from that team took something else home with them Monday afternoon — a healthy dose of gratitude from the players of Wayne Newton Post 346.
The host team completed its trip through the losers’ bracket — and offered its coaches a little bit of deja vu — in impressive fashion Friday, scoring nine runs in the top of the second inning on its way to a 15-2 rout of the Kokomo team who put them in the losers’ bracket in the first place.
The 8-6 loss Saturday morning to Post 6 may have revitalized the Terre Haute players, or at least that’s how they saw it after Monday’s win.
“It put in perspective that we knew we had to come out and play well to beat these guys [from Kokomo] twice,” said Tyler Wampler of that Saturday setback. “They put a charge in us, got us fired up. It’s an awesome feeling to come back and win.”
“We really needed [to be] grounded,” added Dougie Collett, looking back at the game that snapped Post 346’s 15-game winning streak. “Everybody was kind of on cloud nine. That [loss] brought everybody back to reality … it was probably the best thing that could’ve happened.”
Manager John Hayes wasn’t quite ready to sign the thank-you card, but he wasn’t surprised by the outcome either. He’d seen it before, in fact.
“Our kids were up to it today,” he said. “We had the best team here.
“There are a lot of similarities to ‘06; we lost the second game of the regional at Madison that year to Muncie, and had to come back and beat Muncie twice.”
References to the 2006 American Legion season, when the Wayne Newton team reached the national championship game, are magical, of course, and some of the parallels between that season and this one are eerie.
And like that team four years ago, this one has ambitions that wouldn’t have been satisfied by a campaign that ended in July. So it took care of business.
The bad weather that forced a suspension of Saturday night’s late game pushed the tournament’s final game back a day, which meant that the opening-night starters for both teams were eligible again. That worked out in only one case.
Kokomo’s Colton Summers, who had thrown an estimated 160 pitches in a 10-inning stint on Friday, got through the first inning — and some of Terre Haute’s hottest tournament hitters — unscathed. But the Post 346 lineup is deep, and proved it in the second inning.
“I feel I was hitting the ball well, just not getting any breaks,” said Parker Fulkerson, 3 for 17 in the tournament before leading off the inning. “But we have confidence in all our players; we’ve hit well the whole year, and we know if we’re going to mess up the next guy will pick us up and get a big hit.”
Fulkerson got the first big one Monday, lining a shot to the left-center gap that bounced over the fence for a ground-rule double. Then Collett, 4 for 17 at that point in the tournament, launched a towering two-run homer.
Kokomo manager Don Spall quickly ended the attempt to bring Summers back, but Post 346’s fun was just beginning. A walk, an error and a sacrifice put runners on second and third before the next six Terre Haute batters hit shots — an RBI single by Jacob Hayes, a run-scoring double by Wampler (1 for 16 before his 4-for-4 day on Monday), a two-run double by A.J. Reed, an RBI single by Michael Eberle, another double by Fulkerson and a two-run single by Collett.
“Everyone came through today,” said Collett, deflecting praise for his eventual four-hit, five-RBI day. “It was a lot of fun. I’ve been struggling this season, but I wound up coming through today. I hope I can keep it going the rest of the tournament.”
That big inning took the pressure off Reed, coming back to the mound after his own 122-pitch, eight-inning outing Friday, and also off his manager.
“I have butterflies before every game,” John Hayes said with a laugh, “but after the second inning they all flew away.”
Reed retired the first seven Kokomo hitters and went five innings before Josh Dove finished the seven-inning contest. Later offensive highlights were provided by Andrew Gauer, who had the second-inning sacrifice bunt but later blasted his first homer of the year and also added a double.
Now it’s on to Plymouth for state tournament play. Post 346 is idle for the tournament’s first day on Thursday, and will play the winner of a Thursday contest at 4 p.m. Friday. It might be safe to say that few of the Terre Haute players or coaches consider this weekend the pinnacle of their dreams either.
“We’ve seen this team grow all season,” John Hayes concluded, “and we’re a better ballclub because of it.”
Post 346 15, Kokomo 2
Post 346 ab r h bi Kokomo ab r h bi
Hayes ss 4 2 1 1 Tinsley cf 4 0 0 0
Wampler 2b 4 3 4 2 Gorski ss 2 0 0 0
Reed p 2 1 1 3 Adams ss 1 0 0 0
Dove p 0 0 0 0 Moreno 1b 2 1 1 0
Eberle 3b 5 1 2 2 Simmons 1b 1 0 0 0
Fulkerson rf 3 2 2 0 Green rf 1 0 0 0
Goldman ph-rf 1 0 0 0 McQueary rf 1 0 0 0
Collett 1b 5 1 4 5 Reel 2b-3b 3 1 1 0
Niehaus lf 3 1 1 0 Schacht 3b 2 0 1 1
Patterson ph-lf 1 0 0 0 Brantley pr-2b 1 0 0 0
Lunsford c 5 2 0 0 Love c 3 0 0 0
Gauer cf 3 2 2 2 Hoover dh-lf-p 3 0 1 0
Girton ph-cf 1 0 0 0 Summers p 0 0 0 0
Vazquez p 0 0 0 0
Copp p 0 0 0 0
O’Neal lf-p-lf 2 0 1 1
Totals 37 15 17 15 Totals 26 2 5 2
Post 346 090 213 0 — 15
Kokomo Post 6 000 100 1 — 2
E — Gorski, Love, Hayes, Dove. DP — Post 346 2, Kokomo 1. LOB — Post 346 9, Kokomo 5. 2B — Fulkerson 2, Wampler, Reed, Hoover, Gauer. HR — Collett (6), Gauer (1). SB — Wampler. SH — Gauer. SF — Reed.
IP H R ER BB SO
Wayne Newton Post 346
Reed (W, 8-0) 5 3 1 1 2 4
Dove 2 2 1 0 0 3
Kokomo Post 6
Summers (L) 1 3 2 2 0 0
Vazquez 1/3 5 7 6 1 0
Copp 2 2/3 4 2 2 1 6
O’Neal 1 1/3 4 4 4 3 0
Hoover 1 2/3 1 0 0 0 1
WP — Copp, O’Neal 2. PB — Lunsford. HBP — by O’Neal (Fulkerson). T — 2:19.
Next — Wayne Newton Post 346 (36-5) begins play in the American Legion state tournament at 4 p.m. Friday at Plymouth. Kokomo finished 24-12.
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