LANCASTER, Ohio — After conceding a one-out triple in the bottom of the seventh in a tie game, the Napoleon Legion Post #300 baseball team found a way to hold Beverly-Lowell Post #389 scoreless in the frame.
The River Bandits (33-14) then responded in the top of the eighth with a bases-loaded sac-fly to drive in the go-ahead run before posting a zero in the bottom half to earn an 8-7 win Sunday and clinch a spot in the state legion championship game today.
The Bandits, who opened the tournament with a narrow 7-6 loss Friday, bounced back over the weekend with a 4-2 win over Lancaster Post #11 Saturday before 5-1 (over Cambridge Post #84) and 8-7 wins Sunday.
Post #300 gets its rematch with Yeager-Benson Post #199 — which it lost to Friday — this morning at 10 a.m. in the championship game. Should the Bandits win the first game, it would then need to defeat Yeager-Benson again in a 12:30 p.m. game.
Zack Boecker (Holgate), in his only plate appearance of the weekend, delivered the winning swing. After Elijah Arend (Fairview) and Kenneth Smeltzer (Montpelier) led off the eighth with back-to-back singles, Tripp Langenderfer (Archbold) walked to load the bases. Following a fielder’s choice out at home, Boecker, as a pinch hitter, belted the ball to center field for the sac-fly RBI.
For the weekend, Kaden Kreinbrink (Liberty Center) paced the Bandits’ offense, finishing with five hits — including a triple and a home run — with a team-high five RBI. Arend added four hits a pair of RBI, while Smeltzer (RBI), Bryan’s Cam Bukowski (two RBIs) and Cade Carlin (RBI) and Fairview’s Anthony Singer (RBI) each had three hits.
Also for Post #300, Langenderfer singled and doubled with an RBI, Owen Reynolds had two hits and three walks with an RBI and Maddox Baker (Edgerton) had a pair of singles and drove in two runs.
On the mound, Logan Stein and Cory Herman (Edgerton) delivered complete-game victories in the first two games of the weekend. Stein allowed two runs — one earned — and seven hits with four strikeouts, while Herman allowed one run and seven hits with one strikeout. Neither pitcher walked a batter.
In Sunday’s nightcap, the Bandits shuffled through five different pitchers, as Ryne Maag nabbed the win in two scoreless innings of relief. He allowed two hits and two walks with one strikeout before Singer followed with a scoreless eighth inning and one strikeout.