EDWARDSVILLE – Edwardsville American Legion Post 199’s baseball team ran into a hot bat in their rain-delayed Tuesday night game against Salem Post 128 at SIU-Edwardsville’s Roy Lee Field.
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Salem’s Trevor Markley had a 3-for-3 night, including two doubles and four RBIs, as Post 128 scored a 6-4 win over Post 199 to send Edwardsville’s Legionnaires to their third straight loss following a pair of defeats Sunday in the Firecracker Classic; Edwardsville fell to 16-5 on the summer.
The start of the game was pushed back some two hours due to severe storms and lightning that rolled through the area right before the originally scheduled start time.
“We made some mistakes defensively, mentally, but we did take advantage (of situations); Reid (Hendrickson) got a couple of big hits for us and Joel (Quirin) got a hit that kept the thing going,” said Edwardsville manager Ken Schaake. “Konnar Loewen came through with a hit to left field, just putting the ball in play, but we made a couple of mistakes that they didn’t make; we lose the ball out in the outfield and made a couple of bad plays in the infield.
“We don’t handle a rundown when we’ve got the guy nailed at third base; a couple of little things.”
Edwardsville also gave up seven walks and a hit batsman that put runners on base in the game. “That’s eight extra hits,” Schaake said. “You can’t do that with any team.”
Despite the mistakes, Schaake was pleased with the effort. “They’re going to come back; they played solid attitude-wise – we just didn’t make the plays or get the type of pitching that we’ve had when we needed it.”
Salem got on the board first in the bottom of the third (Salem was the designated home team for the contest) when Max Phillips, Issak Hays and Trent Giler each had walks with one out; Markley stepped up and hit a solid double to bring home Phillips and Hays and stake Salem to a 2-0 lead; Wyatt Engeman then retired the next two hitters to put out the fire. Edwardsville countered with two runs of their own in the top of the fourth when Quirin delivered a one-out single to score Alex Schreiber and Hendrickson chased home Nick Yates with an RBI double to tie the game at 2-2.
The tie didn’t last long when, in the bottom of the fourth, Ryan Matheny reached base on a two-out error and went home on a Phillips RBI single; Hays then was walked to bring up Geller, who drew a walk to load the bases and bring up Markley, who hit a bloop double to left-center to score Phillips and Hays. Geller then rounded third and seemed to be ready to get home, but he slipped on the wet turf getting around third and was tagged out trying to get back to third for the final out of the inning and a 5-2 Salem lead.
Edwardsville pulled to 5-4 in the sixth thanks to RBI hits from Hendrickson and Loewen, but an RBI single from Noah Teasley gave Salem an insurance run before Salem shut the door on Edwardsville in the seventh.
Mikey Hampton went 1-for-4 in the game for Post 199, with Schreiber having a run scored, Will Messer a run scored, Yates 1-for-4 with a run scored, Quirin 1-for-2 with an RBI, Hendrickson 2-for-3 with two doubles and two RBIs and Loewen 1-for-3 with an RBI for the game. Wyatt Engeman went the distance in taking the loss with three strikeouts on the night.
Post 199 is off today for the Independence Day holiday but returns to action at 6 p.m. Thursday with a makeup doubleheader against Belleville Post 58’s Hilgards at the Edwardsville High turf field.
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