By Drew Terhall

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — It was another busy week for Greenville baseball at Sater Heights Park. The Greenville American Legion Post 140 teams and the Greenville senior ACME team took the field on July 11 and 12.

On July 11, the Post 140 18U team took on their 16U team in preparation for the District American Legion Tournament. The 18U team won 8-1.

Head coach of the 18U team Chad Henry said while there isn’t a lot of an age difference between the two teams, the older team should win in this type of situation.

But, the 16U team showed their talent during the game. They even started the game striking out the top of the order of the 18U team.

“Eventually, your talent is going to win out a little bit in this situation. But, I thought they (16U) held themselves really well,” Henry said.

Henry also said the team is playing their best baseball the last two weeks after a slow start to their season, which was expected.

The 16U Thunder team came back on July 12 and won 9-6 over the Greenville senior ACME team.

The Thunder got out to a 5-0 lead after the first two innings. Seth Kiser drove in the first two runs on a double. Zach Ward and Braylon Byers each drove in a run as well.

Greenville responded in the top of the third. Layne Hocker drove in a run to put his team on the board. Drew Hamilton followed it up with a two-run double. Cole Marshall drove in a run to make it a 5-4 game.

They took the lead in the top of the fifth inning as Marshall had a two-run single to go up 6-5.

But it didn’t take long for the Thunder to regain their lead. In the bottom of the sixth, Troy Lavy put a ball in play and scored a run to tie the game. After scoring another run, Carson Bergman drove in two more to get the 9-6 win as the Thunder put away the game in the seventh.

Thunder head coach Austin Baumgardner said it’s been a common theme for the team to start slow, but pick it up late in the game. Just like in this game, the team didn’t give up after losing their lead.

“It’s the story of our season. We start out slow sometimes and then they always rally. We have a bunch of guys in the dugout that just whenever things get going tough, they don’t give up,” Baumgardner said. “That’s one quality you can’t teach. That’s been ingrained throughout their young days.”

Greenville head coach Ryan Delk said the team battled all game, but just came up a little short.

“It was fun. Love playing the Legion team, there’s some Greenville kids on there. It’s always a great time, especially when you play a competitive fun game. Come out and get blown out, it’s no fun for the fans or the players. It was a great baseball game. At the end of the day, just came up a little short,” Delk said.

Greenville senior ACME will have two home games next week, on July 18 and 19.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]