Elsberry Post 226 AA team takes second at Charleston Tournament

 Posted on Tuesday, June 19, 2012 at 12:54 pm

The Elsberry American Legion Post 226 AA team played in the Charleston Wooden Bat Classic June 15-17. Despite being a 17u team,

Elsberry played in a 19u tournament with three of the four top senior babe teams in the state which are headed to next weekends senior babe final four state championships were in the Tournament.

“We told the boys that we needed to play our game and not worry about the age of the other team,” said Head Coach Joe Pott.

Elsberry first played the New Madrid Quakes on Friday night, a senior babe team that is one of the final four teams.

It was 0-0 until the fourth inning when the Quakes scored a run in the top half. Post 226 answered with one in the bottom half on an RBI by Steven Tow. They scored two in the top half of the fifth and Elsberry scored two in the bottom half to tie it again on another two RBI double by Tow. They scored one more in the top of the sixth to take a 4-3 lead.

“We talked to the boys in the middle of the inning and told them we needed to stop matching run for run and to try to break this game open,” said Coach Pott.

Elsberry did just that as they scored three in the bottom half of the sixth to take a 6-4 lead. They held on to win 6-5 with Tow getting the victory and Dylan Howard getting the save.

Hitting was led by Tow who went 3-4 with a double and three RBI’s. They also had hits by Howard, Dave Goddard, Ryan Eisenbath and Troy Strunk.

“It was a big win which we needed in order to have a chance to play in the championship game which was our goal when we came down here,” said Coach Pott.

Next up on Saturday was another final four team, the tournament host Charleston. Elsberry lost the coin toss and giving Charleston home field advantage.

“We told the boys to just have some fun and lets put some runs on the board first and take the pressure off ourselves,” said Coach Pott.

With one out in our half of the first, Dave Goddard single to get on base. Tow moved him over and he scored on a drive by Ryan Eisenbath to right field to take a 1-0 lead.

“We told them in the middle of the inning to try and get three up and three down to not let them in the game,” said Coach Pott

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