ALBION — Three teams from the Elk County Legion Baseball League were slated to begin Region 8 tournament play on Friday.
Thanks to inclimate weather, two of three scheduled games involving local clubs were played — sort of.
Bradford Post #107 began the day’s action against Corry Post #365. Bradford beat the rain, but could not beat Corry, as Post #107 suffered a loss to start its tournament.
Wilcox Post #467 was able to start its opening matchup against Meadville Post #17137, runner-up of the Crawford-Verango Legion League. Wilcox, Elk’s regular season champion, jumped out to a 4-0 lead behind the strength of its two top pitchers before persistent rain prevented the game from finishing.
“They’re solid defensively and have some decent pitchers,” Wilcox coach Mike Porter said of Meadville. “They have a mix of guys from Cathedral Prep, Cochranton and Meadville High. Both (pitchers) throwing against us were probably throwing low 80s.”
As has been the team’s identity all season, Wilcox made its opponent pay for allowing free baserunners.
“We hit a couple hard balls that didn’t find holes, but used our speed to generate a couple runs here early,” Porter said. “They gave us a couple free passes, then our guys were moving around the bases and taking advantage of situations with baserunning.”
Wilcox started Carson Whiteman, a Gannon University baseball commit, on the mound. Whiteman threw 30 pitches before being relieved by Gabe Watts, a St. Bonaventure University baseball commit, who threw 32 pitches before the heavy rain came.
As Porter explained, Wilcox will use a mix of arms to eat up innings during pool play in hopes that it can enter Monday’s playoff bracket at full strength.
“The idea is to get out of your pool as a one or two seed, so no matter what happens during the weekend, you’ve got to have a plan to win two games on Monday to get out of the tournament,” Porter said. “That’s kind of our game plan. We’re going to try to keep as many guys available for Monday as we can, so that if we get there, we can go after it full throttle.”
Wilcox and Meadville will resume at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday before the rest of Friday’s slated games, plus the entirety of Saturday’s games, are completed at John Light Field.
Smethport Post #976, which was scheduled to begin tournament play Friday against Wesleyville Post #571, will have to wait until Saturday to begin its championship quest. Much of the tournament field will be required to do the same.
Other than Bradford and Corry, each team will have to play two games on Saturday.
Wilcox and Meadville will give way to Smethport and Wesleyville, followed by another make-up game before Wilcox and Smethport battle in Saturday’s first regularly scheduled contest. Bradford will play French Creek Valley Post #205 on Saturday before the teams conclude pool play on Sunday.
“It makes it a little trickier with pitching,” Porter said. “Legion has the rule that you can’t make more than two appearances in three consecutive days, so you’re eliminating a day of rest here with having to play two games tomorrow.”
The tournament, which features teams from the Elk, Erie and Crawford-Venango leagues, plus host West Erie County, splits its eight teams into two pools, with the top two sides in each pool advancing to Monday’s playoffs. A single-elimination playoff on Monday will then decide which of the four teams advance to the state tournament.
While improved weather is forecasted for Sunday and Monday, Friday’s rainouts may not be the last that teams will need to manage.
“It’s up here close to the Erie shoreline, so any weather that comes across the lake just picks up precipitation that gets worse as it comes through here,” Porter said.
A complete schedule for the weekend tournament can be found at palegionball.com. The Era will continue to provide updates as the tournament progresses.
