Post 95 falls in final game; looking toward tournament

With the Jr. Legion District Tournament set to begin on Thursday, it was good to see that Vandalia’s squad did not give up during its final regular season game on Monday.

Unfortunately, the offense didn’t start clicking until after it had fallen behind by 13 runs and needed to score to make the game last more than five innings.

After the eventual 17-9 loss to Effingham, however, coach TK Kinkead said he believes that fighting spirit will serve his team well in Salem over the next several days.

“They have done this all year, where (they produce after) they are down by 10 runs and have their backs against the wall,” he said. “With the tournament coming around, we’ll have to find something to do (to prevent that).”

And since lobbying for a 10-run handicap would achieve nothing, Post 95 will just have to begin the tournament on Thursday and hope for the best.

To help prepare, the team will spend some time prior to the tournament in the batting cages and on the field for some extra defensive practice before traveling to Salem.

Kinkead said that with all the other sports and activities the players have going on, he hopes a small practice before the first tournament game will put the team in a “baseball mindset.”

In return, the hope is that Vandalia won’t allow a six-run first inning like it did against Effingham.

Post 95 played small ball to get one of those runs back in the bottom of the first, using a double, a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly to produce the run, but no runner would advance past second base until the bottom of the fifth inning.

At that point, Vandalia had just allowed eight more runs to Effingham and faced a 14-1 deficit.

Connor Beasley led off the inning with a towering home run to right field, and the next four batters all singled, including a two-run hit by Nick Metzger that cut the lead to 14-5 and ensured that the game would last at least one more inning.

On Wednesday, Beasley and Metzger represented Vandalia at the All-Star Game at GNC Park in Sauget.

The next five hitters in the inning walked, and by the time the third out was recorded, 14 batters came to the plate and produced eight runs to make it a 14-9 ballgame.

Effingham added two more runs in the sixth and another in the seventh, while Vandalia was able to muster just one hit in each of the final two innings.

Kinkead hopes the team comes out with the same fire that it did in the bottom of the fifth once the tournament starts, and he knows they are capable of that, considering Post 95 has scored consistently in several games this season.

“These guys don’t like to lose,” Kinkead said. “They just have to come out and play baseball; that’s our biggest problem right now.”