EDWARDSVILLE – Alton is on the verge of reaching the American Legion Great Lakes Regional.
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Post 126 came from behind to take a 4-2 win over Newton late Monday afternoon at SIU-Edwardsville’s Roy Lee Field, where Monday’s games had been moved to after rainy weather on Sunday and early Monday; they’ll meet up with Danville, who fell to Mount Prospect 3-1 in Monday’s final game of the day, at 11 a.m. today.
The winner of that game will take on Mount Prospect at 2 p.m. today for the tournament title, but both teams will advance to the regional next week in Napoleon, Ohio, scheduled from Aug. 8-12 as Illinois is sending two teams to the eight-team regional this year. Alton had defeated Milan earlier in the day to move into the Monday afternoon game against Newton, who had been defeated earlier in the day by Mount Prospect.
Michael Reeder got the ball for Alton and after conceding two runs in the top of the second, kept Newton at bay, while Post 126 took the lead with three runs in the fourth and got an insurance run in the sixth to move into the final day of the tournament.
Pitching has been a strong point for Alton in the tournament; they got complete games from Adam Stilts (a loss to Danville in their first game Saturday) and Wesley Laaker (a win over Milan Monday morning to get to the game against Newton) before Reeder’s CG, something Alton manager Nick Paulda pointed to with pride.
“We don’t always win the games, but even when you lose and you can save pitching, it’s important,” Paulda said. “Adam battled for us the first day and that just saved us the pitching now - later on in the tournament when we really need it in a tournament like this.
“Michael came out and threw a great game – he kept them off-balance. That Newton team we saw earlier in the day, they can hit. They won the Fifth Division – it’s not an easy division to win in; that’s a good ball club and Reeder battled against them. He did what we needed him to do.”
That Alton had given up a pair of unearned runs in the second could have hurt Post 126, but an Ethan Kopsie RBI single that scored Cullen McBride and got Alton to 2-1 at that moment may have given them the lift they may have needed, Paulda thought. “We changed the game with Ethan having a nice base hit to right field,” Paulda said. “That’s what started us hitting the ball once again.
“We just told them seeing those hard hits – even in the sixth inning when (Elijah) Dannenbrink grounded out to short with the infield in – we work on it and we say we want to find the outfield there; we want a deep fly ball to get that runner in, but he hit a hard ground ball to shortstop; even though it’s not what we need, it was good to see – we hadn’t seen that in awhile. It may be the start of this offense coming back together.”
Newton had gotten the bases loaded in the bottom of the second when they scored twice on an error that brought in Zack Stark and Ben Britton to put Newton ahead 2-0; Reeder then went to work on the mound and kept Newton off the board the rest of the way.
Alton bounced back in the bottom of the fourth when McBride led off with a double and one out later, Kopsie’s single brought in McBride and gave Alton some momentum; Gage Booten then singled and Griffin Bianco walked to load the bases to bring up Ben Mossman.
Mossman struck out, but the ball got past the catcher for a wild pitch to score Kopsie and tie the game at 2-2; Dannenbrink then singled home Booten to put Alton ahead 3-2, with Bianco coming around to try to score; Bianco was thrown out at the plate for the final out of the inning.
“There was a little bit of miscommunication as the inning ended,” Paulda said of Bianco’s charge for home. “We’ve got aggressive guys on this team; it’s good to have a team where you have to tell them to slow down compared to ‘hey, we need to get going.’ It didn’t come back to hurt us, but it’s something we can learn from.”
Mossman singled home Simon Nguyen, who was pinch-running for Booten in the sixth, with an insurance run; Reeder then retired the side in order to send Alton to this morning’s semifinal game.
McBride was 1-for-3 with a double and run scored for Post 126 in the game, with Dannenbrink 1-for-4 with an RBI, Jayce Maag 1-for-4, Kopsie 3-for-3 with an RBI and run scored, Booten 1-for-3 with a run scored, Ngyuen a run scored and Bianco and Mossman both 1-for-3. Reeder struck out four for the game.
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