HOLLAND, Ohio – The Metro East Bears' American Legion baseball season came to a close Saturday afternoon.
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But it was a great run while it lasted.
Rockport, Ind., brought the Bears' season to an end thanks to a four-run bottom of the fourth as they went on to eliminate the Bears 6-1 in an elimination game of the American Legion Great Lakes Regional tournament at Mercy Field near Toledo, Ohio.
The win sent Rockport into today's final day of the tournament; Danville defeated Midland, Mich., 8-4 Saturday night to set up an elimination game with Rockport at noon today, with the winner taking on Midland for the Great Lakes berth in this week's American Legion World Series in Shelby, N.C., at 3 p.m. today. The Bears were eliminated with a 42-10 record for the summer.
“We had a tough game the night before” when the Bears fell to Midland, said Bears manager Ken Schaake. “We hit the ball, just not a times when we needed to; we made a couple of mistakes as well and we couldn't get even with them.
“We've got nothing to hang our heads about; we just came up a little short.”
The game started out even until the Rockport half of the fourth; the inning started when Manning Webb singled off Andrew Frank and went to second on an error, then went to third on a Sammy Rowan single; Rowan went to third on a wild pitch while Trever Zink struck out before Brice Stuteville walked to load the bases. Grahm Turner then drew a walk to score Webb and Rowan scored on a wild pitch to make it 2-0 for Rockport.
A Logan Seger fielder's choice scored Stuteville before Reece Kleinhelter lifted a sacrifice fly to right to bring home Turner to put Rockport up 4-0. The Bears countered with a run in the top of the fifth when Andrew Yancik led off with a triple to center and subsequently scored on a Dylan Burris single to cut the Rockport lead to 4-1, but Seger quickly shut down the Bear offense the rest of the way. Rockport scored again in the bottom of the fifth and added a solo run in the eighth to end any comeback hopes by the Bears.
Frank went five innings in taking the loss, throwing 101 pitches, 62 for strikes; he gave up five earned runs on five hits and struck out two; Brandon Hampton threw the final three innings, fanning four and giving up an earned run on a hit in 43 pitches thrown, 27 for strikes.
Yancik went 1-for-3 with a triple and run scored for the Bears, while Corey Price went 1-for-3 with a double and Dylan Burris went 1-for-3 with a RBI and Blake Vandiver 2-for-4 at the plate on the day.
Schaake is looking ahead to next season as Bears manager. “We'll have 10 of the kids eligible for next season,” Schaake said. “We'll have a good nucleus to build around, but we'll miss the kids who's eligibility is up.
