WAHOO — The Wayne American Legion Juniors trailed early, but rallied for a 7-4 win over host Wahoo to move into the final four of the Class B American Legion Juniors state tournament Monday at Sam Crawford Field.
The host team posted a pair of runs in the top of the first inning, but Wayne scored a run in the second and three in the third to take the lead for good.
Wayne loaded the bases with nobody out in the second, but could only push across one run when Jase Dean laid down a perfect suicide squeeze to score pinch-runner Will Leseberg to cut the deficit in half.
Wayne took the lead for good in the third with three runs, thanks to an RBI single by Aiden Liston and a hot shot by Kaden Keller that got past the second baseman, allowing Leseberg and pinch-runner Calvin Ankeny to score to make it 4-2.
Wahoo scored in the top of the fourth, but Wayne got the run back in the bottom of the inning on another Wahoo error that scored Gavin Redden to make it 5-3.
Wayne would add two more in the fifth on Redden’s double to left, scoring Dean and Zach McManigal, and a seventh-inning rally by Wahoo fell short, advancing the 26-1 Wayne Juniors to a Tuesday elimination game against Sutton.
Aiden Liston threw a solid game, going 6 2/3 innings with six hits, four walks and five strikeouts. He also had two of Wayne’s seven hits in the contest, with Redden, Devan Anderson, Kaleb Moormeier, Keller and Dean adding hits.
Tuesday’s game with Sutton will be at 4 p.m. with the finals set for 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
