AVISTON – Tate Wargo was a key for the Edwardsville American Legion Post 199 all season as the baseball team finished with a 28-7 mark.
Wargo got Edwardsville’s first run of the Illinois American Legion Fifth Division Baseball Tournament against Salem at Aviston City Park Sunday afternoon.
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That, however, was the only run that Post 199 would score on the day as Salem went on to tie the game in the fourth and score the winning run in the bottom of the eighth to hand Edwardsville a 2-1 defeat and knock Post 199 into the loser’s bracket of the tournament.
The Legionnaires certainly did that in their Monday win over Carmi to move on in the tournament, scoring a 9-4 win to move into games on Tuesday.
That things didn’t work out like Edwardsville had hoped for against Salem is how baseball can go sometimes.
“Sometimes things are going really great and sometimes, things are going really bad,” Wargo said. “Throughout all the days, you’ve got to keep the same mentality and forget about the bad stuff and the good stuff too; it’s a new day.”
There’s a saying in baseball that goes “if you lose today, you win tomorrow and try to win the next day”; that’s a philosophy the Post 199 players stuck with over the course of the season. “The ballplayers on this team are hard workers and we always come back and give it all we’ve got,” Wargo said.
Wargo’s run on Sunday came off a leadoff walk in the first, followed by a steal, a groundout from Mikey Hampton that got him to third and a Joel Quirin grounder to short that scored the run. “We manufactured a run there,” Wargo said. “That’s what it takes sometimes.”
Wargo walk and run scored was the only time he got on base in the game Sunday. Following Monday’s win against Carmi, Edwardsville eliminated host Aviston Tuesday evening but fell to Salem again Tuesday night to be ousted from the tournament.
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