American Legion Baseball: Post 15 AA Iola Indians
Over the weekend, the American Legion Post 15 AA Iola Indians baseball team opened the 2018 season with their home tournament. They ended the weekend with as many losses as the Iola High School baseball team racked up all season two.
Coming from a team whose majority of players are either fresh off a 4A-II state championship or an appearance in the 3A state tournament say nothing of the fact that most of these players made up the 2017 Legion team that finished runner-up in the state tournament the start is a disappointment.
However, the team that took the field at Allen County Community College is not the Iola Mustangs, Humboldt Cubs or the 2017 Iola Indians. While many of the faces are the same, theyre something different all together.
The lineup is different, the coaches, for the most part, are different and the opponents that theyre playing are not the standard Pioneer or Tri-Valley League fodder.
New head coach Levi Ash-more and his assistants Jason Bauer and Brett Lisher are very early in the process of pulling together the 2018 iteration of the Indians, combining all-state Iola talent like Derek Bycroft, Cal Leonard and Isaac Vink with some young Humboldt up-and-comers like Jackson Aikins and Conor Haviland. Mix in several guys like Darius Greenwalt and Daylon Splane who graduated from Iola and Humboldt respectively in 2017 but returned for a final season in an Indians uniform and you have what should be a giant on the Legion scene.
Weve got a good group of Iola kids and then weve got a couple of young Humboldt kids that weve brought in, Ashmore said. But the biggest thing right now is finding out how this group meshes well with each other. But we want to win and we want our guys to progress through the season and get on board. Well get there.
THE INDIANS
opened things up with a 3-2 win over Chanute Post 170 AAA on Friday before splitting on Saturday between the 417 Baseball 17U Black team (10-5 loss) and the 417 Baseball Royal team (9-1 win). The 417 teams were based out of Springfield, Mo.
While stats were unavailable for the first two games, it was Splane in game three who led the way with three hits while Vink and Bycroft both recorded two and Leonard, Lance Daniels, Aikins and Hunter Baughn each grabbed one.
Starting pitcher Ethan Tavarez allowed just two hits and a run throughout six innings.
Sundays tournament closer versus Emporia Post 5 AAA ended with a 13-5 five-inning, run-rule loss.
Vink took the mound to start things off and struggled with a new look-defense behind him.
We played some guys at some different positions just to kind of experiment, Ashmore said. We have a lot of guys who play shortstop and centerfield but you cant play them all there so we have to find different ways to get those athletes in good position so we can get their bats in the lineup so we can win.
Emporia jumped out to a 5-0 lead thanks in part to multiple Iola errors before the Indians got back in the game with a three-run top of the third. Iola allowed a run on a double in the bottom of the inning but the Indians responded in the top of the fourth with two-runs to cut Emporias lead to a run.
The Mustangs seemed to be back on solid footing again and with two outs in the bottom of the fourth, Vink attempted to get out of a bases-loaded jam. Emporia found the gap though and doubled, scoring two in what ended up being a three-run inning.
After a quick 1-2-3 top of the fifth, Iola sent Greenwalt out to try to stem the tide. Emporia got right on him though and almost before you could blink, the Indians allowed another four runs to trigger the run-rule and end the game.
Despite the result, Ash-more seemed encouraged by both Vink and Greenwalt and looks for both to bounce back soon.