The Wayne American Legion Juniors won three games and lost on a walk-off hit in the bottom of the seventh to take runner-up honors in a tournament at South Sioux City over the weekend.
On Saturday, Wayne opened the tournament with a 6-1 win over Tekamah. The locals built a 4-0 lead after three innings and limited their opponents to three hits to win their first pool game.
Zane Jackson, Justin Dean and Tucker Nichols each had two hits to lead a nine-hit effort. Beau Bowers scored two runs and Brennan O’Reilly, Dean and Nichols each had RBI’s. Tyler Lutt got the win with five solid innings of pitching, allowing two hits and two walks while striking out four.
In their second game, Wayne’s bats got hot early as they blew out Vermillion in three innings, 16-3. Wayne scored eight runs in each of the first two innings and pounded out 12 hits to win their second game of the day.
Bowers had the hot bat with three hits and three RBI’s. He doubled twice and scored two runs. Nichols had two hits and four RBI’s and O’Reilly added two hits. Tyler Gilliland pitched three innings, striking out six and allowing two hits and five walks.
A forfeit on Sunday moved Wayne into the finals against Blair. Wayne scored two runs in the top of the sixth to take a 3-2 advantage, but Blair came back with two in the bottom of the seventh, getting a walk-off single to post a 4-3 win and send Wayne to its first loss of the season.
Gilliland had two of Wayne’s eight hits in the game. Jackson doubled and Nichols and Edgar Ficke-Anderson both had RBI’s in the losing effort. Nichols pitched five strong innings and Jackson was the hard-luck loser in relief for the 6-1 Juniors.
