Wayne’s Senior American Legion baseball team got one more regular season victory at home last Wednesday, July 7, over Wisner-Pilger/Howells-Dodge as Post 43 gears up for the area tournament it will host starting next week. The Blue Devils blew past W-P/H-D, 11-3, to improve their record to 13-4. Following two scoreless innings, the away team got on the board first with a run in the top of the third inning. Wayne’s Seniors responded with a resounding nine runs in the bottom of the inning to stake their claim to victory. The boys in blue put up two more runs in the bottom of the fourth, one of which came off a W-P/H-D error (one of seven for the visitors that night), to close out the scoring.
Wayne compiled 10 hits in the contest, compared to Wisner-Pilger/Howells-Dodge’s three. James Dorcey (triple, single), Jacob Kneifl (double, single) and Jacob Anderson (double, single) each had a pair of hits to lead the way. The Devils got help from those three, along with Blake Bartos and Justin Sherman, who all registered RBIs in the big third inning scoring spree. Bartos was the winning pitcher for the local Seniors, going five innings where he struck out six batters while allowing three runs off three hits.
Wayne now has plenty of time to prepare for the Class B Area 5 Tournament it will host beginning next Friday, July 23, at Hank Overin Field. Besides Wayne, the tourney – which runs through Wednesday, July 28 – will feature teams from Stanton, Schuyler, Pierce, O’Neill and Columbus Lakeview. The Class B State Tournament will be held in Crete from July 31-Aug. 5.
