Alton Junior Legion baseball team defeats Troy 8-4 in home game

Brent Feeney, Sports Writer

Jun 11, 2015 4:00 PM

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For a game that had quite a bit of scoring, it went by pretty quickly.

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Alton American Legion Post 126's junior baseball team took on Troy Post 708 at Gordon Moore Park/Lloyd Hopkins Field Wednesday night in a game that featured 12 runs scored by both teams, but only took 90 minutes to play.

“With the wood bats we use, it does help the games to go quicker,” said Post 126 coach Dennis Sharp after his team defeated Troy 8-4 after falling behind 3-0 early on. “But even more importantly, we rose to the occasion, made our at-bats a lot better as the game went on and got a couple of key bunts down that really helped us.

“I told the kids that we have to take advantage of the opportunities when they come to us, and we did that tonight.”

Things weren't looking good for Post 126 early on; Troy took an early lead when a Nate Clark double and a Steven Nguyen error brought home Merrick Fulton and Nick Cangola to stake Post 708 to an early lead, followed by a Chase Bertlesman single that brought in another run to put Troy up 3-0 in their half of the first.

Alton bounced back with a run of their own in the bottom half of the first when, after a baserunning error cost them an out, Nguyen scored on a Tate Wargo grounder to the pitcher to cut the lead to 3-1. Troy got that run back in the third when Brendan Phillips scored on a Cangola double deep to left field, but Alton pulled to 4-2 when Nguyen hit a shot to deep right-center that rattled around a bit before Troy could get to the ball. Nguyen wasted no time and motored around the bases quickly for an inside-the-park homer.

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Bryce McKinney got the start for Alton, but only made it through 2.1 innings before being lifted in favor of Storm Coffman, who had pitched Monday night in an 8-1 win over Belleville but was very efficient off the mound, prompting Sharp to give him another chance in relief.

“Storm had a pretty nice outing,” Sharp said. “We are trying to get a couple of more pitchers developed right now; we're looking at Steven Patten and Steven Nguyen at the moment. Bryce had a little trouble with his curve tonight, but we'll be all right.”

Coffman's efficiency on the mound helped Alton, and Post 126 forged a tie in the fourth when Brandon Droste reached on an one-out error and scored when Simon Nguyen tripled; that was followed by a Patten grounder to short that scored Nguyen to tie the game. Post 126 then grabbed the lead in the fifth when Braden Flanagan and Steven Nguyen reached base on hits and errors and were sacrificed over by Coffman. Wargo then singled in one run and a throwing error on the play brought in another run for a 6-4 Alton lead.

In the sixth, Droste opened with a single, stole second and third and came home on a one-out single from Patten, when then advanced to third on a wild throw from right. Ben Mossman then grounded to the pitcher for the second out, but Patten came home on the play for Alton's final run.

Post 126 fell to Fairview Heights 2-1 on Tuesday night; Wargo was the losing pitcher in that game.

Next up for the junior Legionnaires is a weekend tournament in Bedard, with games set for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They then travel to Jerseyville on Wednesday before returning home for a game against Smithton at 7:30 p.m. June 18.