The American Legion Baseball Illinois State Tournament is comprised of 8 teams, of which includes the host team and seven qualifiers from five divisions around the state. With only four divisions having tournaments this summer, three of the divisions will send their tournament’s top two finishing teams on to Aviston next for the Illinois State Championship Tournament. The winner of the Illinois State Tournament will move on to the Great Lakes Regional tournament in Lexington, Kentucky August 5-9. The Great Lakes Regional champion will take part in the American Legion World Series in Shelby, North Carolina August 13-18th.
Our most local American Legion baseball squads are a part of the 3rd Division, which is one of the three divisions that will send two teams to Aviston for the state tournament. The two teams that will represent the 3rd Division will be Rock Island Post 200 and Galesburg Post 285. Both teams already punched their tickets last night at Sherrard High School. They will meet tonight at 5:30 for the Division championship trophy. Both teams came into the tournament as the top two seeds, respectively.
Galesburg punched the first ticket by defeating Rock Island 18-1 in the winner’s bracket final. Rock Island fought their way back to a rematch with Galesburg after beating Oneida Post 727 7-3 in the loser’s bracket final. Rock Island will have to beat Galesburg twice in order to win the tournament title. In the win over Rock Island, Galesburg pounded out an amazing 23 hits and scored nine of their 18 runs in the top of the 7th to make the game a complete blowout. Tyree Taylor goes 5-5. Noah Nalley, who had the walk-off hit in Galesburg’s 1-0, 8-inning win over Oneida on Thursday night, blasted two home runs and drove in 7 runs. Chance Stewart had three hits and scored three runs. Post 285 ran their winning streak to nine games and are now (19-5) overall.
Earlier in the day on Friday, Oneida stayed alive with a 6-5 win over East Moline Post 227 and had a chance to punch their ticket to the state tournament with a win over Rock Island in the loser’s bracket final. Rock Island broke open a 3-3 game with four runs in the bottom of the 6th to get a 7-3 win. Rock Island gets their 30th win of the summer against just 7 losses. Though both teams will automatically move on to Aviston next week, the 3rd Division championship will be played at 5:30 and, again, Rock Island will have to beat Galesburg twice in the double eliminaton format.
The Galesburg Post 285 Junior Legion squad was also trying to qualify for the Junior State Tournament in Carol Stream yesterday. Galesburg was taking on Jerseyville Post 492 at HT Custer Park in Galesburg in the 3rd Division tournament championship game. Galesburg needed to beat Jerseyville twice after losing the winner’s bracket championship 6-5 on Thursday. Galesburg defeated Knoxville Post 749 7-2 after the loss to Jerseyville on Thursday to get another shot at moving on in the postseason. Galesburg would lose a 2-1 heart breaker in the first meeting on Friday afternoon ending their season at (12-10-1) for the summer. Jerseyville scored both of their runs in the bottom of the 1st and hung on the rest of the way.
