BASEBALL: Marion knocks out Pinckneyville-Du Quoin
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Pinckneyville-Du Quoin saw their Senior American Legion season come to a halt on Wednesday afternoon, as Marion Post 147 exploded for 18 runs to eliminate Posts 2504 & 647 from the 5th Division Tournament in Metropolis by the score of 18-4.
Much like Monday's loss to Mt. Vernon, 2504/647 had key mistakes in the field that led to rallies for their opponent on Wednesday. Two-out hits also killed Pinckneyville-Du Quoin, as twelve of Marion's runs came in those situations.
"We didn't make a whole lot of plays," said Pinckneyville-Du Quoin head coach Derek Beninati. "We gave up too many runs with two outs, it seemed like we couldn't get that third out today. The defense kind of let us down, we dug ourselves a hole we couldn't get out of."
"We kind of lost our edge a little bit. We played hard, we just didn't have it today."
Four singles in the first inning led to a pair of runs for Post 147 off of P'ville-Du Quoin starter Noah Hepp, then two walks and three extra-base knocks made it 6-0 after the top of the second. Connor Bird led off the second with a homer for Marion, Jordan Allensworth added a triple.
An error opened the door for another rally for Marion in the third, and when Brandon George finally put 2504/647 on the board in the bottom of the inning with a solo blast, 2504/647 trailed 9-1.
Any momentum Pinckneyville-Du Quoin may have developed with the George homer was long gone a half inning later. Seven straight hits for Post 147 in the top of the fourth opened the game up for good, and sent Hepp from the mound in favor of Bryce Harre. Harre fared little better, allowing three runs on seven hits in his three-plus innings of work.
"Marion hit the heck out of the ball today," Beninati said. "They were hitting pea rods all day. They were hitting it where we weren't, and we hit the ball hard, but we were hitting it right at them. It's just one of those days."
Seth Baxter doubled and scored in the bottom of the sixth, and Marian Brammeier crossed home after reaching on an error, but the deficit was too big. Craig Dahlman added a solo homer for 2504/647 in the seventh.
Pinckneyville-Du Quoin scattered ten hits in the game with each player in the lineup registering at least one, Baxter had two (2-4, 2B). Bryant Shute (1-4), Adam Barczewski (1-4), Brandon Long (1-4), Taylor Beninati (1-3), Brammeier (1-3, BB), George (1-3, R, HR, BB), and Harre (1-4, 2B) provided the rest of the offense.
Allensworth was 6-for-6 (3 R, 3B) at the plate for Post 147, Dylan Arvai was 4-for-5 (2 R, 2B, BB). Marion totaled 25 hits in the game. Nate Webb threw all seven innings for the victory.
Pinckneyville-Du Quoin's schedule comes to a close after their first trip to the Divison tournament in over a decade, which provided some late-season excitement from a team that had underachieved in the regular season and received the bottom seed in the 25th District tournament.
"We struggled a little bit during the (regular) season, but we knew all along we had enough talent to do something in the postseason," Beninati said. "The kids played well, we thought we had a pretty good chance coming in. Being short a few players kind of hurt us a little bit, but we still had as much talent as anybody else."
2504/647 was missing Trent Bigham (OF/P), Sam Kuhnert (P), and Landon Chandler (INF) for all three of their games in Metropolis this week.
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