The Metro East Bears American Legion baseball team won a pair of games Thursday and Friday to go to 18-5 on the summer.
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The Bears defeated Smithton 6-0 in a District 22 road game Thursday night, taking their district mark to 5-2 on the season, then defeated American-National of Hazelwood, who plays in the St. Louis Amateur Baseball Association, 9-4 on the road.
Against Smithton, Austin Ruesch and Kade Burns teamed up throw a two-hit shutout; Corey Price led the Bears with a three-hit game with two RBIs for Metro East while Steven Pattan had two hits on the evening.
Against American-National, the Bears got out to a 5-0 lead through three innings and added two in the fourth and two in the seventh for the win; Blake Vandiver went 4-for-4 in the game with a homer and two RBIs while Burns and Andrew Yancik each had two hits, Konnor Loewen had a double and three RBIs and Joel Quirin had two RBIs. Brandon Hampton got the win for Metro East, with Zach Seavers also seeing time on the mound.
Five Bears – Storm Coffman, Pattan, Cole Hansel, Vandiver and Tate Wargo – will be playing at 8 p.m. Monday on the Illinois team for the Gateway Illinois-Missouri Border War Legion all-star game at GCS Ballpark in Sauget. A junior all-star game will take place at 6 p.m. as a curtain-raiser for the senior game.
The game was first played in 2008 and has taken place every year since, except for 2016, when the game was rained out.
