Winning Iola’s first Kansas American Legion AA State Baseball title in 24 years, the 2012 Iola AA Indians qualified for the American Legion Baseball Division 2 Central Plains National Regional.
The Indians leave Wednesday to go to Wahpeton, N.D., which is hosting the regional tournament. Games begin Thursday; the championship game is on Sunday.
Iola takes on Grafton, N.D., at 2 p.m. Thursday. Ely, Minn., plays Las Vegas, Nev., at 11 a.m. in the other game in Iola’s side of the bracket.
Wisconsin Dells, Wisc., plays Plato, Minn., at 5 p.m. followed by Wahpeton taking on Groton, S.D., at 8 p.m. The opening ceremony for the regional tournament is at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
“The winner of this tournament qualifies for the American Legion World Series,” said Mike Taylor, AA Indians head coach. “But we won’t be going on if we win because most our kids will be going to college or getting back to school next week.”
The Indians captured the 2012 Kansas American Legion AA state title Sunday in Sabetha. They defeated Hays-TMP 6-2.
“I wouldn’t wanted to do this with any other group of guys,” said Jarred Latta, Iola’s left fielder and pitcher, following Sunday’s game. “We’ve worked hard for a long time together.”
Hays’ Monarchs forced a second championship game by holding off Iola on Saturday afternoon. The two teams played three times in the state tournament.
The Indians appeared on their way to another patented come-from-behind win Saturday afternoon. Hays had defeated Pratt 2-1 in the losers bracket final earlier Saturday and moved into the championship game.
Hays benefited from several Iola errors early to stake a 5-0 lead after two innings. Iola got on the scoreboard in the sixth inning. Levi Ashmore led off with a walk, stole second and with two outs, Drew Walden drew a walk. Ashmore moved to third on a passed ball and Corey Taylor had an RBI single.
In the bottom of the seventh, Iola was down 5-1 and battled. Mason Coons walked, then with one gone, Kris Collins had a pinch-hit single. Devon Conner went in to run for Collins then Ashmore hit a hard smash to second base that turned into a single. With the bases loaded, Clint Heffern and Jerrik Sigg had back-to-back RBI singles.
Iola still had the bases loaded with one out. The Indians couldn’t come up with another hit and lost 5-3 to Hays forcing Sunday’s winner-take-all.
Sigg pitched the entire game Saturday, giving up eight hits, walking five and striking out nine. But the Indians had trouble offensively against Hays’ Pierce Scheppers, a left-hander. Scheppers worked five innings before he had to retire because of inning count.
Hays brought in Cameron Brin in the sixth, who got tagged for three runs on five hits until giving way to teammate Shane Zimmerman. Zimmerman struck out two batters to end the Iola rally and the game in the seventh.
Sigg had three singles in the game. J. Latta, Coons, Taylor, Collins, Heffern and Ashmore each had a single.
