By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

LANCASTER — The Greenville American Legion Post 140 Thunder 18U baseball team ended their season finishing in the top four at the Ohio American Legion State Tournament at Beavers Field in Lancaster.

They went 1-2 in the double elimination tournament. Both losses came against Yeager-Benson Post 199 from Harrison, a program that won the last three State tournaments. Head coach Chad Henry said it was a great experience for his team to compete in this tournament and go up against the best of the best in the state.

“It was good. When you get to the last six teams, there’s not a lot of people left here. We had to play great baseball to get here and we did. We ran into the three-time defending State champion twice in the same tournament,” Henry said. “We give them what we got and they just got a little more, especially this far down in the tournament.”

They started their tournament with an 11-1 loss to Yeager-Benson on July 27. Yeager-Benson scored three runs in the bottom of the first inning and maintained their lead.

Braden Chambers drove in the Thunder’s lone run of the game in the top of the sixth inning on a sacrifice groundout. Nathan Waggoner pitched four innings and had two strikeouts. Waggoner also made a great play on the mound with a no-look reach around catch on a line drive to start a double play. The play can be seen on the Beavers Field Facebook page. Braeden Wills pitched 1.2 innings and had a strikeout.

Later the same day, Greenville stayed alive and won 5-4 over St. Clairsville Post 159.

It was a scoreless game heading into the sixth inning. Greenville put up four runs in the top of the sixth inning to take a 4-0 lead. Xavier Mathews drove in the first run of the game on a RBI single. Layne Hocker, Adam Edwards and Zack Fulk each drove in a run in the inning.

St. Clairsville responded with four runs of their own in the bottom of the sixth inning. In the top of the seventh and final inning, Mathews doubled in a run to give Greenville a one-run lead and eventually the win.

Fulk pitched six innings and had three strikeouts while allowing seven hits. Hocker got the save and didn’t allow a base runner.

Henry said the team’s hardwork during the season rewarded them with this trip to the State tournament and with a tournament win. He also said he is always coaching and trying to make corrections on every little detail. The team has learned from their mistakes and improved from them.

“This was an exciting group. They wanted to be better. They showed up on time, they did the extra work and they did everything you could ask a team to do. They were rewarded for that,” Henry said.

On July 28, Greenville got matched up with Yeager-Benson Post 199 again after they lost to Findlay Post 3 on July 27 and then knocked out Wayne County Post 68 before they took on Greenville.

Harrison scored nine runs in their game against Wayne and kept the bats going against Greenville. They scored four runs in the top of the first inning, all with two outs.

Greenville came back with three runs of their own in the bottom of the first inning. Waggoner was hit by a pitch with bases loaded to score the team’s first run. Mathews hit a sacrifice groundout to score in another run. Seth Kiser walked with the bases loaded to drive in the third run.

Yeager-Benson were still rolling offensively and scored five runs in the top of the second inning, four coming from a grand slam.

Greenville started to limit the runs against Harrison as the game went on. Yeager-Benson scored two more in the third inning, one more in the fourth inning and three in the fifth inning to get the run-rule win.

Greenville made plays defensively to keep the game within reach. In the third inning with no outs and runners at the corners, Edwards caught a line drive and made the throw over to first to get the double play.

When they needed to stop the bleeding, Greenville made the play defensively to get out of the inning. The Thunder got some base runners on, but couldn’t string together the hits needed to keep up offensively.

Greenville ended their season with a 15-3 loss to the defending State champions. They finish with a 20-15 record on the season.

The future looks bright for the Thunder after this State appearence. Henry said they will have a chunk of the roster returning along with some kids coming up from their 16U team and might have some others joining the program.

“We lose four people off the roster. It’s an incredible will be senior class. We’ve already had a lot of interest from some other guys wanting to come in. We had a 16U team that was incredible this year. They played a lot of good competition. We’re very excited about what we can do next year,” Henry said.