The Monmouth Post 136 Sr. Legion baseball team will have to fight its way back through the loser’s bracket of their District 14 tournament after dropping a 12-2 decision to East Moline Post 227 last night at Sherrard High School. East Moline only garnered one more hit than Monmouth in the ballgame but drew nine walks against Monmouth pitching. The game was scoreless until East Moline scored a pair of runs in the top of the 3rd. A walk, infield error and a 2-run double by Tyler Runkle have East Moline an insurmountable early lead. It was the 4th inning that led Monmouth’s undoing. After only giving up one hit in the first three frames, Monmouth staring pitcher Avery Leffler had trouble finding the strike zone and gave up three straight walks to put himself in danger. After a 2-run single by Lucas DeLaere chased Leffler from the game, Koby Killey came on in relief for Monmouth. Killey gave up a pair of singles for two more runs and by the time the 4th was over, Monmouth found themselves trailing 9-0. Post 136 scored a run in the bottom of the 4th on a run scoring single by Nate Bigger and pushed across another run in the 5th on a Nick Corman rbi single. But East Moline would put the game away in the 6th with three more runs off Killey bringing the final score to 12-2. Nolan Leffler led Monmouth at the plate, going 2-3. The loss sends Monmouth to loser’s bracket and gives them the day off today. They will now take on the winner of the Moline/Rock Island contest at 10:00 tomorrow morning. Moline and Rock Island play tonight at 5:00 with East Moline playing Milan tonight at 7:15 for one of the two available spots that will take part in the Division 3 tournament. Monmouth will have to win two games on Saturday for the second spot. The first game of the night last night, saw an instant classic. Milan defeated Moline 10-9 on a walk-off single in 10 innings that saw the lead go back and forth throughout.
In the District 15 tournament in Canton, it was Limestone 4 Peoria 2 and then Limestone defeated Canton 9-5 to put themselves in the winner’s bracket final. Oneida Post 727 will finish their game against Jerseyville today at 1:30. Oneida leads the game 8-1 in the 6th inning. Should Oneida hold on to the lead, they’ll face Abingdon Kiwanis immediately following.
