BURLINGTON — State, here come the Indians.
Iola American Legion Post 15’s A Indians captured the 2012 American Legion Zone 3 Tournament Championship Friday. The A Indians needed just four innings to put away the host team, Burlington, 11-1 in the title game.
Burlington had pulled out a 13-12 win over Eureka in the losers bracket final earlier Friday evening.
“We had beaten Burlington earlier in the tournament and our kids went into the championship game with a lot of confidence,” said Bruce Faulhaber, Iola A head coach. “We had good pitching throughout the tournament and we hit the ball much better this tournament.”
With the zone tournament win, Iola A advances to this week’s 2012 Kansas American Legion Single A State Tournament in Pratt. The state tournament begins Wednesday.
This is the first appearance in the Single A state tournament by an Iola team in recent memory. The A team has been an on-again-off-again program for Iola American Legion.
Burlington’s lone run of the championship game came in the first inning. Iola answered with a run in its half of the first.
Trent Latta, Iola’s starting pitcher, got the inning started with a one-out single. Caleb Vanatta drew a walk and Derrick Weir drove in the run when he reached on an error.
The A Indians broke the 1-1 tie when Latta had a base hit and moved to second on an error. Vanatta doubled in the run followed by Weir and Aaron Barclay getting hit by pitches to load the bases. Grayson Pearish delivered a three-run triple and scored on a ground out by Eric Heffern.
Up 6-1, Iola rolled up the run-rule win with a five-run fourth inning. Kohl Endicott drove in the final two runs on a single.
Latta held Burlington to three hits and struck out five. He also was 3-for-3 at the plate with two singles and a double. Pearish tripled and Vanatta doubled. Drew Faulhaber, Cole Morrison and Endicott each had a single.
Iola A goes into the double-elimination state tournament at 18-6. The tournament runs Wednesday through Saturday at Pratt’s Green Sports Complex.
It faces Ozawkie Post 225, which is the Zone 1 champion, at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Also in Iola’s side of the bracket are the host team Pratt which plays Zone 2 champion Paola in the game after Iola’s.
“I think we’ll fare well at state,” Faulhaber said. “We have continued to pitch well and playing solid defense. If we hit the ball like we did in the zone tournament, we’ll compete well against the teams in the tournament.”
In the other side of the bracket are Salina Hawks, the Zone 6 champion, playing Zone 5 champion Arkansas City Grays and Hays Eagles, the Zone 7 champion, taking on Zone 4 champion Salina Eagles.
