Dusty Maas is considering transferring from Council Grove to Emporia or Manhattan.
The dugout was silent as the Emporia A-16 Blues gathered their things on Saturday afternoon.
There wasn’t much to talk about after an 8-7 loss to Nickerson. The Blues thought they’d spend the entire weekend playing at the Legion State tournament. Instead, they were one of the first teams knocked out.
Thanks to Soden’s Grove playing host to the Regional next week, the Blues’ season is not over yet, and it’s a good thing, because it would have been a sour ending to what’s been an otherwise successful season.
“Hopefully it leaves a bad taste in their mouth,” coach Jerry Cook said. “They know what they need to do to win next weekend.”
The tournament was definitely a learning experience. Friday taught the Blues the importance of defense, when Jacob Loucks’ two-hitter went for naught because of seven Emporia errors.
The defense sharpened up on Saturday, but offensively, the Blues played the waiting game for the big hit. As they found out, that rarely ever works out.
They left 12 runners on base, leaving runners on in every inning but the sixth, and leaving the bases loaded in the second and third innings.
“We had a lot of missed opportunities,” Ethan Hall said. “We didn’t execute in a lot of situations. We played pretty good defensively. We just didn’t really execute the way we wanted to offensively.”
Finally, in the fifth inning, it all seemed to turn for Emporia. Trailing 7-3, Loucks came up with two outs and the bases loaded for the second time. In the second inning, he had flied out harmlessly to center.
But this time Loucks hit a shot down the line that carried over the right fielder for a triple. Nickerson tried to get Loucks out at third, and an errant throw resulted in Loucks coming all the way around to score and tie the game.
“The momentum was coming our way,” Cook said. “We came out and all we had to do was shut them out.”
That didn’t work out according to plan.
Nickerson loaded the bases in the sixth inning. Casey McConnell reached base after Emporia catcher Remington Pinick could not squeeze strike three and didn’t want to risk a bad throw to first with the other base runners running on the play.
Brett Lechien struck out Greg Adelhardt, which should have been the second out. The dropped third strike proved costly, because Hector Rodriguez followed with a fly ball to center field that scored Jordan Newton on the sacrifice, giving Nickerson an 8-7 lead.
The Blues went down in order for the first time in the sixth, but they once again had a chance to come through with a timely hit in the seventh.
Lechien led off with a walk and advanced to second on Dusty Maas’ sacrifice bunt. Matt Fry followed with a ground ball back to the pitcher, who threw to third to get Lechien out. Loucks singled to give Hall a chance to tie the game or possibly win it with an extra-base hit.
Hall nearly delivered, hitting a line drive. Unfortunately for the Blues, Hall’s liner went straight to the Nickerson third baseman.
“It’s one of those at-’em balls, and there’s not much you can do about those,” Hall said. “It was right where I wanted it to be. I don’t know, not much you can do about that.”
Hall’s final out marked the end of a rough day for the Olpe product. He started at pitcher and gave up seven runs in 3 1/3 innings.
Hall ran into trouble in the fourth inning when Justin Engelland reached on a one-out infield single.
Bryan O’Toole came in to pinch-run, and Hall started worrying about O’Toole at first and threw over numerous times. He walked the next hitter and then gave up an RBI single to Qunitin Crandall. He walked McConnell to load the bases, and then hit Adelhardt with a pitch before giving way to Lechien.
“I’d gotten in a pretty good rhythm and I shouldn’t have messed with the runner as much as I did,” Hall said. “It’s baseball. We had a bad day.”
The Blues have until Thursday to get things figured out. They open Regional play on Thursday against North Dakota at 6 p.m. at Soden’s Grove.
Loucks led the Blues offensively against Nickerson, going 3-for-5 with a double, triple and three RBIs. Maas went 2-for-3 with an RBI and also reach on a hit-by-pitch. He finished 5-for-6 for the tournament. Nate Flanagin also had two hits, and Lechien had the Blues only other RBI. The Blues dropped to 24-13 with the loss.
Legion State tournament
Saturday at Soden’s Grove
Nickerson 8, Emporia Blues 7
Nickerson 030 401 0 — 8 7 4
Emporia 012 040 0 — 7 11 2
WP — Rodriguez. LP — Lechien.
2B — EMP: Loucks. 3B — EMP: Loucks.
Legion State tournament
Saturday’s results
Dodge City 9, Lansing 1
Nickerson 8, Emporia 7
KC Varsity 11, Salina 1
Manhattan 3, Wichita 2
Sunday’s results
Nickerson 12, Ottawa 4
Dodge City 13, Wichita 5
Manhattan 14, KC Varsity 3
Dodge City 9, Nickerson 7
Today’s games
Dodge City vs. KC Varsity, noon
Championship
Manhattan vs. DC/KC Varsity winner, 2 p.m.
Tuesday — Manhattan vs. DC/KC Varsity
winner, 10:30 a.m., if necessary
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