Pine Island Wins Third District Legion Baseball Tournament

Pine Island had their best pitcher waiting to throw the championship game of the 3rd District American Legion Baseball Tournament and cashed in with a 12-2 six inning win over Kenyon Post 78.

Keegan Majerus threw a three hitter for Post 184 while striking out three hitters, walking none and hitting three batters.

Pine Island stroked 18 hits in the game and scored in all but one inning.

Kenyon had their top pitchers unavailable due to the pitch count rule and Owen Hilke took the hill for Post 78.

Hilke will be a freshman in high school this fall and struck out two batters, walked three and gave up 18 hits in five and a third innings,

Mitchell Boyum pitched to the final three batters of the sixth inning with one walk.

Kenyon defeated Goodhue 10-1 in the first game of the day.

Goodhue Post 598 made quite a debut in the tournament, finishing third in the 16 team field.

Saturday night they scored six runs in the 8th inning to defeat Pine Island 14-8 while cranking out 19 hits in the game.

Kenyon pitcher Tyler Ryan will be a junior this fall at Kenyon-Wanamingo High School and held the hot hitting Goodhue team to six hits.

Goodhue Post 598 scored their lone run in the fourth inning with Kenyon ahead 8-0.

Jack Gadient had a one out single for the first hit of the game off Ryan, Casey Ryan followed with a walk, Nick Thomforde singled and Colin Warren collected the only RBI of the game for Goodhue.

Goodhue had also used up their top pitchers and held Kenyon to four hits in the game.

Kenyon Post 78 took advantage of 11 walks and three hit batsmen to score their 10 runs.

Kenyon opened the game with three runs in the top of the first inning.

Dylan Craig and Gavin Roosen led the game off with infield singles, then Carter Leininger clubbed an RBI single followed by a run scoring on a ground out off the bat of Matt Houglum.

Kenyon scored three runs in the second inning, a run in the fifth and a run in the seventh without the aid of a hit.

Post 78 tallied three runs in the fourth with Tyler Ryan collecting the only hit of the inning and scoring on a balk.

Kenyon did not have an error in the game and left 11 runners on base, 5 in scoring position.

Goodhue Post 598 had 3 errors and left 7 runners stranded with 3 in scoring position.

In the championship game Kenyon was the home team by virtue of winning the coin toss.

Pine Island Post 184 scored three runs in the first inning.

With one out Drew Lohmeyer had a single, Brady Braaten walked and Keegan Majerus had a single before a Derek Fall RBI single and Derek Rucker 2 RBI hit.  Nine batters went to the plate in the inning.

Kenyon scored two runs in the bottom of the first when Dylan Craig reached on an error, Gavin Roosen was at first on a fielder's choice with one out.

Carter Leininger was hit by a pitch, Matthew Houglum was safe on an error and Tyler Ryan connected for a 2 RBI single.

Gavin Roosen had two singles for the only other hits off Majerus in the game.

Pine Island scored two runs in the second, one in the third, one in the fifth and five in the sixth.

Number nine hitter Josh Navratil will be a junior this fall and had three hits including two doubles, scored three runs and was on base all four times at the plate.

Lohmeyer had three hits and a RBI, Derek Fall two hits, Derek Rucker two hits and two RBI.

Pine Island advances to the State Legion Tournament being hosted by New London-Spicer July 28-30 with fields in Spicer and Paynesville.

Post 184 opens play 10:00 a.m. Friday in Paynesville against District 2 Champion Springfield.

The State Tournament has a pool play setup with three teams in each pool.

Pine Island will play their next game 9:00 a.m. Saturday against BOLD in Spicer and after each team has played a couple of games in their pool the top four seeds will play.

If Piine Island is a top four seed they would play either 4:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. Saturday.

District 1 Champion Caledonia opens in Pool B at 11:00 a.m. against Proctor in Spicer and they play again Friday at 1:15 p.m. against Stephen-Argyle.

The winner of the Division 2 State Tournament advances to the Great Plains Regional which is in Wahpeton, North Dakota this year.