SPRINGFIELD – Greenville American Legion Post 140 defeated Springfield Armoloy 11-2 to earn the championship trophy at Springfield’s Armoloy Memorial Day Tournament played at Wittenberg University’s Charlton Davidson Stadium.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been around better baseball,” said Post 140 coach Chad Henry. “We did every aspect of the game well throughout the tournament and when the offense showed up, it made us very difficult to deal with.”
Armoloy went down in order in the top of the first with Kenny Moore getting the first two outs of the game by way of strikeouts and the third a grounder to Trent Collins at third throwing across the diamond to first basemen Alec Fletcher.
Greenville took advantage of a Zac Longfellow walk to open the bottom of the first, a Tyler Beyke single and a Kyle Mills walk to load the bases. Post 140 would get a run with a Casey Jones fielder’s choice to lead 1-0 after one.
Armoloy plated a run in the top of the third to tie the game at 1-1 with the Thunder coming to the plate to blow the game wide open with nine runs in the bottom of the third.
Three consecutive Post 140 doubles greeted Armoloy in the bottom of the third with Kyle Mills drilling a double to center, Collins driving a run scoring double to center and Jones knocking a RBI double to left giving Greenville a 3-1 advantage.
“An Armoloy error scored one run for Post 140, Darrin Hays singled scoring one run, Beyke clubbed a two run double, Collins crushed a two run double and a singled off the bat of Jones plated a run to give Greenville Legion a 10-1 lead with three innings in the book.
“In the third we hit five doubles, three of which occurred after a misplay in left,” Henry said. “We capitalized on every mistake this weekend – it was incredible.”
Each team would score a single run over the final four innings to give Greenville Legion Post 140 a 4-0 Memorial Day tournament record and claim the Championship trophy.
Kenny Moore recorded the win for Post 140 pitching 6.0 innings, one earned run, four hits and two walks while striking out eight. Kody Shinabery pitched 1.0 inning of shutout ball in relief to earn the save.
“I’ve grown to expect big performances from Kenny Moore,” said Coach Henry. “When we clinched the title (Monday championship game) yesterday we held him back for this game but needed him to go deep being there fifth game in three days. He exceeded that by pitching six very impressive innings before handing it over to Kody for the close.”
“Pitching efficiency was incredible this weekend,” added Henry. “Everyone attacked the zone and made the defense work.”
Zac Longfellow led Greenville going 3-4 with a walk, a double and 2-runs scored. Trent Collins went 2-4 with two doubles, 3-RBIs and 2-runs scored and Casey Jones was 2-3 with 3-RBIs and a run.
“Zac Longfellow and Trent Collins really paced the offense,” Henry noted. “Zac was 11-15 and 10 runs scored while Trent was 7-13 with four doubles. Just tremendous individual performances.”
Tyler Beyke went 2-4 with a double, 2-RBIs and a run, Darrin Hays was 2-3 with a walk, 1-RBI and 1-run and Kyle Mills went 1-2 with a walk and a run scored. Kody Shinabery had a RBI and a run and Cameron Shimp had a walk and a run scored.
