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Gladstone Wins Legion Tournament For First Time
 ESCANABA---The Gladstone Indians battled from behind twice on Sunday, and took home the championship of the Gregg Johnson Memorial American Legion Baseball Tournament. The Indians won the ten-team event with a 9-7 victory over the Eastern U.P. Travelers in the semifinals, and a 4-3 triumph over DePere (Wis.) in the final. Both games went right to the wire, and the Indians did the little things at the right times, taking advamtage of mistakes by both of their opponents at "crunch time".  "It's a great feeling," Weinert said. "It's great that we all got to experience it!" "This is awesome," Indians pitcher Brandon Cooper said. "I've been playing Indians for two, three years now and I mean, Midland wins it every single year it seems like. So it's pretty cool to win this, actually, compsing us to Midland, and even to DePere." Midland Berryhill has won this tournament multiple times over the years, but the downstate team was not here this time because of a scheduling conflict. The team taht replaced them, Milford, went 0-4, giving the Indians an opening without last year's tournament champions in attendance. DePere also has a tradition here, too, having won the title in 2015 and finishing runners-up to Midland last year. The Indians fell behind, 2-0, as DePere got to Cooper right away with two runs on three hits in the first inning. Matt McNabb's sacrifice fly brought in one run, and T.J. Tietz's two-out single brought in the second. But Cooper settled down from there, holding DePere off the board before leaving the mound with one out in the seventh inning.  "We dropped the camper off at Gus's house and he says, 'Coop, you ready to pitch?" Cooper said. "I was like 'our you kidding me!' I haven't even thrown a ball in a week. So, I came out here and tried my best. And it ended up going pretty well." Gladstone tied the game in the fourth inning when Tyson Seymour got a one-out single and Weinert followed with a hit. Those were the first two hits off of DePere starter Matt Willems. Ben Schwalbach's ground ball was missplayed, and Seymour scored. Then Jack Stephenson did a nice job of hitting behind the runner by bouncing to second base, bringing home Weinert with the tying run. "When I got the first hit, I was like, 'we need to get some hits, guys, because we have nothing here''," Seymour said. "Then I ripped one right up the middle." Seymour also led off the sixth inning with a single, but was caught trying to steal. Then in the top of the seventh inning, it started to pour down rain, and DePere took advantage.  Rukamp was safe on that play, and after a passed ball moved him to third, he scored on a sacrfifice fly by Lucas Reynolds. With the rain still coming down in the bottom of the seventh, it looked like the Indians would lose when Noah Olsen hit a ground ball with two out and nobody on base. It was thrown away, however, and Olsen went to second base. That brought up Owen Hanson, and he got two strikes on him. With the game on the line, Hanson slugged one into right field to bring home the tying run. In the eighth inning, Seymour showed his leadership on the defensive side of the ball as he raced after a foul ball on the first base line. He got to the fence, literally climbed it, stretched out his body, and caught the ball. It was the play of the young season. "When I saw it, I was like, 'this is gonna be in play'," Seymour said. "I was just tracking it down the whole time. I saw the fence coming, and I saw it going over, so I just jumped up, and I snagged it over the fence!"  Then in the bottom of the inning, Braeden Lamberg led off with an infield base hit. Hunter Garling bunted him (yes, Garling bunted) and the throw to first appeared to be in p;enty of time, but the umpire ruled that the DePere first baseman pulled his foot. With two on, Seymour was hit by a pitch to load the bases. That brought up Weinert, and he put down a perfect bunt between the mound and plate, scoring the winning run." "I saw the first baseman and third baseman and they were playing in real close," Weinert said. "I knew I couldn't hit it too hard down the line, otherwise, they would have an easy play at home. So I was just trying to hit a soft one out to the pitcher because he would have the hardest time of getting it home." SEMIFINAL: INDIANS RALLY PAST EUP TRAVELERS---Earlier in the day in Gladstone, the Indians and Eastern U.P. Travelers played a sloppy game that took two hours, 38 minutes to play. There were numerous walks, errors, and hit battsmen, and the Indians found themselves behind, 7-4, in the third inning. But thanks to a couple more errors, walkes, a double by Seymour, and a Ben Schwalbach single, the Indians scored five runs to take a 9-7 lead.  Downey threw two scoreless innings before giving way to Elliot Danhoff with two on and two out in the seventh inning. And it was a dramatic ending. Danhoff walked the first man he faced to load the bases, and then he went all the way in the count with Mike Radle, who already had two base hits in the game. Danhoff got a swinging strike three to save the semifinal win. The Indians thought they had a more comfortable lead than that when it appeared that Seymour had launched a grand slam home run to left field. The umpire ruled that it was a foul ball, however, and Seymour walked a moment later, bringing in just one run. "It was a no-doubt home run," Seymour said, shaking his head. "He threw me a hanger, so I hit it, and I sat at home plate and watched it gomover the foul pole...fair." In the end, it didn't matter, as the Indians rallied twice to win the trophy. Gladstone won five games over the weekend, with another against Marquette rained out. Gladstone (7-0) travels to Marinette for the Firecracker Tournament next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The games will be broadcast live on WCHT-AM (600). Click the thumbnails in the ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS box above to see photos and videos, and to heae post-game interviews and radio replays.
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