The Blair Senior Legion baseball team's 2-0 Class B Area 3 Tournament start isn't a surprise to its players.
They're 33-5 altogether, after all.
“We're excited, but we expected to be in the position,” pitcher Tanner Jacobson said Saturday. “We just have to keep going with our flow and how we've been playing all season.”
The postseason tournament continued Sunday and Monday, and is scheduled to conclude today at 4 p.m. in Fort Calhoun. The overall winner advances onto the state tournament in Holdrege.
“We're in a good position,” Jacobson said. “So, just keep it up.”
The Post 154 Bears moved to 2-0 with a 15-7 victory against Arlington on Saturday. Coach James Bilslend's squad built a 13-0 lead through three innings before a brief slip-up in the fifth and the eventual win by run-rule in the sixth.
“We've been hitting good all season,” Jacobson said after the 15-hit ballgame. “We were just able to piece it all together.”
The winning pitcher, who struck out seven batters in four innings, noted the efforts of Brady Brown and Nate Wachter during the second frame. Both players produced sacrifice flies, pushing Blair's lead to 5-0.
“That's really good situational hitting,” Jacobson said. “That's the only thing we've been missing.”
Overall, Nelson Kosch led Post 154 at the plate against the Post 71 Eagles. He was 3-for-3 with four RBIs and three runs scored. Wachter plated two runs altogether, too, while Greyson Kay, Blaien Rosenbaum and Dylan Swanson had RBIs as well.
“It feels good to be playing to our potential,” Jacobson said.
Full Area 3 Tournament results will appear in Friday's Washington County Enterprise edition.
Blair earns walk-off win
Swanson did it again.
After his solo homer beat Fort Calhoun by one run during the regular season, the starting pitcher produced the game-winning run again Friday during the Area 3 Tournament. The soon-to-be Doane Tiger stepped up to the plate during the bottom of the seventh inning and swung, plating Kosch for a 2-1 victory against Post 348.
Swanson, who also threw a complete game with five strikeouts, finished 2-for-2 from the batter's box with a walk. Kay, meanwhile, pushed across Post 154's first run during the first inning. It scored Jacobson, who led off the inning with a triple.
The Bears led 1-0 until the top of the third inning when Calhoun, the tourney host, scored its lone run of the ballgame. Both teams finished with just four hits, but Coach Bilslend's squad earned the win with a clutch piece of hitting by its starting pitcher.
POST 154 SENIOR LINE SCORES
Saturday
Blair 15, Arlington 7, 6 inn.
ARL (9-9) 0 0 0 0 7 0 — 7 9 5
BLAIR (33-5) 3 5 5 0 0 2 — 15 12 1
Friday
Blair 2, Fort Calhoun 1
FC (17-24) 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 — 1 4 2
BLAIR (32-5) 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 — 2 4 0
