After losing to Ste. Genevieve Post 150 3-0 on July 25, the Festus Post 253 American Legion baseball team had to win four games in less than 24 hours to take the Zone 4 championship.
Festus won three out of the four, beating Ballwin Post 611 and Jackson Post 158 on Saturday. Post 253 beat Ste. Gen. 9-5 in the first game on Sunday, before falling 6-3 in the winner-take-all game of the double-elimination tournament.
Post 150 won the zone title, but Festus also received a bid into this week’s state tournament at Liberty Park in Sedalia because Zone 3, encompassing the Springfield area, lacked adequate participation to stage a zone tournament. Festus was awarded the fourth slot in a prearranged rotation. Every summer, Zones 1, 2 and 4 will rotate sending their second-place team to state.
Festus and Ste. Gen, District 13 rivals, have met eight times this season and are tied 4-4. Ste. Genevieve plays Sedalia Post 642 today (Aug. 1) at 5 p.m., while Festus meets Washington Post 218 at 8 p.m. The championship is slated for 1 p.m. on Saturday.
In the first zone title game Sunday, Post 253 exploded for seven runs in the third inning to take a 7-1 lead.
“We had to swing it. You have to hit your way out of the loser’s bracket,” Festus manager Zac Bone said. “It’s a cliché because it’s true. We’ve done that so far.”
Ste. Gen took a 1-0 lead in the first when starting pitcher Derek Morganthaler doubled off Festus hurler Levi Ebersoldt and Grant Staffen and Tyler Blum reached on consecutive errors to chase home Morganthaler.
After two scoreless innings, Morganthaler struck out Isack Hamilton to start the Post 253 third, but then Festus exploded. Christian Hancock started the barrage with a single and stolen base. Jacob Bridges followed with an RBI double to tie the game and Jordan Duncan singled home Bridges for a 2-1 lead. Duncan scored on a bases-loaded walk to Charlie Pratt, who was on base with Ebersoldt (single) and Jake Leitner (hit by pitch) when third baseman Eddie Martin stepped into the batter’s box. Martin crushed Morganthaler’s pitch over the wall in right center field for a grand slam, continuing his torrid hitting streak. Morganthaler escaped further damage by striking out Hamilton, for the second time in the frame, and Hancock to end the inning.
“He put a charge in that baseball. He’s been great all summer,” Bone said about Martin. “He’s a great kid. He’s very coachable. He loves being around baseball.”
Ste. Gen. scored a run in each of the next three innings to climb back into the game. Kellen Blum slugged a home run off Ebersoldt in the third. Chad Donze singled, stole second and scored in the fourth, and Keaton Boyer led off the fifth with a single and scored on an error to cut the Festus lead to 7-4. Post 253 responded with a run in the sixth when Bridges walked and scored on Duncan’s two-out double.
Hancock relieved Ebersoldt in the sixth and gave up a single to Morganthaler with one out. Staffen came up next and his double scored courtesy runner Zach Boyer.
Chase Koller relieved Morganthaler to start the seventh and promptly gave up a leadoff single to Leitner, but escaped further damage with help from a 5-4-3 double play.
Ebersoldt’s single in the third inning hit the top of the wall in center field, inches from a home run.
“I didn’t think it was going to be a home run because I lunged at it and didn’t hit the ball on the barrel,” Ebersoldt said about his single. “If the wind wasn’t blowing in, it probably would have been gone. A double is just as good.”
Bone needed Ebersoldt to last at least five innings on the hill, and he did that, allowing five hits, three walks and a hit batter.
“Not much was effective on the mound,” Ebersoldt said. “I think I did a good job of making themselves get out. My breaking ball wasn’t working a few times. It’s about keeping the ball down and getting ground balls.”
Ste. Gen had the bases loaded against Hancock in the seventh, but Morganthaler grounded out to Duncan at second base for the final out of the game.
“I told them Thursday night, ‘We’re OK.’ We knew we had plenty of pitching left,” Bone said.
Left-hander Logan Warren started for Post 253 in the second game and didn’t make it out of the first. Leitner relieved Warren and pitched the rest of the game. Jayden Gegg pitched five innings for Post 150 and recorded the win. Boyer, Morganthaler and Tyler Blum each had two hits for Ste. Gen.