TOURNAMENT CHAMPS AGAIN: Indians Roll 13-1

MARINETTE, Wis.---The Gladstone Indians American Legion baseball team rolled to their second straight tournament championship on Sunday, beating Marinette, 13-1, in the title game of the Firecracker Tournament at Marinette's Pedersen Ballpark.

The Indians went 4-0 in the three-day tournament, picking up their second trophy after winning the Gregg Johnson Memorial Tournament last weekend in Escanaba.

"This is awesome," Gladstone winning pitcher Brandon Cooper said. "I mean, two in a row! I can't believe it. We're 11-1 right now, and we just keep rolling and rolling and rolling."

It feels really good," Gladstone center fielder Hunter Garling agreed. "We've just been playing really well together. It's nice to have Elliot (Danhoff) with us and be able to, just, all of us to play together. I think we have a shot to go somewhere with this."

By "somewhere", Garling could be referring to Gladwin, the site of the American Legion state tournament at the end of the month.

The last time Gladwin hosted the tournament was four years ago, and the Indians and Garling won the state championship.

Garling cracked a long home run to start the scoring in the first inning. He ended up going 3-for-3, plus one walk, and he scored three runs.

"It felt really good off the bat," Garling said of his home run to right field. "As soon as I hit it, I knew it was gone. We all saw that he (Cole Tachmeier) wasn't throwing very hard, so I just moved up in the box, and got around on it. He threw it inside, kind of up a little bit at the letters, and I just got around on it well, and it went."

After Marinette tied the game at 1-1, the Indians scored five runs in the third inning. Two of them scored on a suicide squeeze bunt by Tyson Seymour. Yep. TWO runs scored on a BUNT by Seymour, the high school All-Stater who bats in the clean-up spot.

"That's our whole philosophy offensively," Gladstone Manager Justin Jurek said. "We've got to apply pressure. We'll give up outs for runs. There's 21 outs in a game, and who wouldn't want to score 21 runs a game? We're asking them to be over-agressive, and more aggressive than they've ever been. I'm not afraid to bunt our #4 hitter. Our #4 hitter has to be able to bunt, otherwise, he can't be in the lineup."

Quinn Downey had three of Gladstone's 12 hits, driving in a pair of runs. Braeden Lamberg had an RBI double, as did Ian Schwalbach. And besides his bunt, Seymour had two more hits, including a shot that hut the fence,just missing a home run.

After the first few innings, the runs made things a bit easier for Cooper.

"This mound they have down here, it's really sandy," Cooper said. "It took me a while to adjust for it because I kept falling off of it. One I finally figured it out, I could finally throw strikes again. First two innings wasn't very good. I walked a lot of people."

Well, actually he only walked three, but Cooper really dislikes walking people. He would up allowing four hits along with those walks, and made two good defensive plays himself to start an inning-ending double play in the fourth and he caught a line shot to start the fifth inning.

Gladstone travels to Escanaba to face the Cubs Wednesday night. Game time is 8:00. It will be broadcast on WCHT-AM (600), and on-line at www.rrnsports.com.

Click the thumbnails in the ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS box above to see photos and videos taken by Laura Lamberg, and listen to post-game interviews.