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ALTON – Alton’s American Legion baseball team has had quite the pitching staff this summer.
The staff conceded just four runs throughout the Illinois District 22 playoffs – but Post 126 will have to wait a week before they host the Illinois State Tournament.
Alton found themselves on the short end of a 2-1 loss to Belleville Post 58 (who had defeated Highland the night before in an elimination game to advance to this game) in an elimination game of the tournament at Redbird Field Thursday evening; the Hilgards will now meet Edwardsville for the District 22 crown at 6 Friday night at Hoppe Park in Edwardsville, with a second game, if needed, set for 8 p.m. tonight. Tonight’s winner moves into the Illinois Fifth Division tournament next week in Aviston.
Alton’s season, however, is not over; Post 126 has an automatic berth for the state tournament as the host team under Legion rules; the tournament begins July 28 and runs through July 31, with the winner moving to the Legion Great Lakes Regional in Ohio.
“That’s what our pitching’s done all year,” said Alton manager Nick Paulda. “That’s what we expect from them – once again, another fantastic outing; Bryce (Parish) did a great job and Simon (Nguyen) did a great job of coming in (relief). Once again, our pitching didn’t let us down; our offense hurt us today.”
Hilgard pitcher Alex Bernard held Alton to three hits and a run on the evening but didn’t strike anyone out. Bernard’s pitching kept Alton at bay through the game - Bernard giving up a triple to Jayce Maag to lead off the bottom of the fourth, Post 126’s biggest blow of the game, but Alton couldn’t get the run home.
“It’s like we told them, you want to beat that guy that comes up in that situation,” Paulda said, “whether it’s on the mound offensively or defensively – you want to be that guy who gets put in a situation like that where you have an opportunity to really help out the team.
“We really haven’t seen that at all; it’s almost the opposite – we’re almost scared to fail at times; if that’s all you’re thinking about, that’s what’s going to happen. That bulldog mentality, that fight, really hasn’t been in our eyes and I’m hoping we can find that come the state tournament.”
Alton had been coming off a tough 1-0 loss to Edwardsville the night before, but Post 126 went into the game confident they could shake the loss off. “We came in today thinking we could still compete with Belleville,” Paulda said. “We’d beaten them twice already this season – we were ready to beat them a third time and we were confident with Adam (Stilts) being able to come back against Edwardsville tomorrow and scrap up some guys for the second game.
“We were confident we could still come out of here going to the (Fifth Division) tournament, but we do have to worry about today first.”
“I was just telling them, if they get a little confidence in themselves, they look like a different team,” said Hilgard manager Greg Eschman. “They don’t look like a bunch of scared rabbits running around out there. It was another close, hard-fought game. I was proud of the kids the way they hung in – Alex Bernard did an unbelievable job; he had a couple of bad outings before this and was a little worried about it, but after he got through the first couple of innings, he kind of settled in and did a really nice job.”
The game was scoreless through the fifth inning; Belleville broke on top in the top of the sixth when Buddy Gore drew a leadoff walk and Hunter Gruppe singled off Parish to put runners at first and second; Parish retired the next two batters to bring up Nick Westerhide, who singled in Gore to put Belleville up 1-0 and Dillon Sunnquist singled in Gruppe to extend the lead to 2-0.
The turn of events in that inning was a bit surprising to Eschman. “I had runners at first and second, I’ve got my two best hitters up and we don’t even move them,” Eschman said. “I thinking ‘here we go again’ and Westerhide’s been our hottest hitter right now and he’s been swinging the bat real well. He didn’t crush it, but he got enough of it to get by the third baseman and give us a lead.”
It stayed that way until the bottom of the seventh, when Zaide Wilson singled to open the inning and went to second and third on wild pitches as Ngyuen walked to put runners at the corners. Gage Booten then came up as a pinch-hitter, but Bernard managed to induce Booten to hit into what turned into a key double play, Wilson scoring on the play to cut the lead to 2-1 but emptying the bases; Bernard then got Elijah Dannenbrink to ground to shortstop to end the game.
While the run scored on the double play, turning the twin killing turned out to be a big play for the Hilgards. “I was a little shocked it was a pinch-hitter; we hadn’t seen (Booten) at all and I thought he was up there to bunt,” Eschman said. “I would have been happy to have runners at second and third with one out and take my chances, but sometimes things work out – that was a great turn.”
Maag went 1-for-3 with a triple on the day while Ethan Kopsie was 1-for-3 with a double and Wilson was 1-for-3 with a run scored. Parish took the loss, conceding three hits and two runs – both earned – while striking out four; Nguyen came on the mound in the sixth and struck out one in his inning-plus of work.
Alton does have some work to do before the state tournament gets underway. “We just have to make those adjustments offensively; we’ve got to be able to bunt the ball better, we’ve got to put the ball on the line a little bit more,” Paulda said.
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Feeney, 56, is a native of Granite City and graduated from Granite City South in 1978. He was a part-time writer for the old Granite City Journal from 1979-84 before attending Eastern Illinois University in Charleston,
from which he earned his BA in journalism in 1988. He has worked for newspapers in Sikeston, Mo., Rocky Mount, N.C., Seneca, S.C. and in Charleston-Mattoon. He also worked for the old St. Clair County Suburban
Journals.
