FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS – Brandon Hampton had a near-perfect game on the mound for the Metro East Bears Saturday evening, giving up just one hit and facing the minimum as the Bears defeated Belleville 2 by a 9-0 count in four-and-a-half innings as play concluded for the day in the Firecracker Classic American Legion baseball tournament at George Lanxon Field at Longacre Park.
The win, coupled with the Bears’ 5-4 win over Aviston earlier in the day, put Metro East at 2-0 in their group with two games set for today, against Ballwin, Mo., at 10 a.m. and Jackson, Mo., at 7:30 p.m.; Metro East improved to 25-5 on the summer. The semifinals and final of the tournament are set for Monday at Belleville’s Whitey Herzog Field.
“That’s the main thing, to be 2-0,” said Bears manager Ken Schaake. “We were not trying to run up the score on that team; they were playing solid defense, they were just a little overmatched at the plate and Brandon had his good stuff tonight, which makes it even tougher. That being said, it also gave us an opportunity to get everybody into the game; we had five pitchers playing in the last inning.
“I told them, ‘I appreciate you coming to the games even when you know you’re probably not going to get to pitch or play,’ but they’re here every game; they deserve the opportunity in a game like this – when we got up 6-0, that’s when I subbed.”
The Bears got ahead with five runs in the bottom of the first, thanks to some station-to-station baseball as a series of singles and a couple of walks brought in Kade Burns, Cole Hampton, Joel Quirin, Corey Price and Tate Wargo to put the Bears ahead early; Metro East sent 11 batters to the plate in the first. Hampton opened up the second with a double and scored on an error to extend the lead to 6-0 through two innings.
A Zach Seavers pinch two-run single in the third brought home Burns and Quirin to give the Bears enough runs to short-game Belleville (the tournament has an eight-run rule through five innings), with a ninth run coming in in the bottom of the fourth when Storm Coffman doubled in Andrew Yancik for a run. Hampton gave up just a single to lead off the top of the third, but a double play wiped out that runner; Hampton struck out four while facing the minimum .
Burns went 3-for-3 with a double, RBI and two runs scored, while Hansel went 1-for-2 with a double and run scored, Quirin 2-for-4 with two runs scored, Price 2-for-3 with three RBIs and a run scored, Andrew Frank a RBI, Steven Pattan 2-for-3, Wargo 1-for-1 with a run scored and Coffman 2-for-3 with two RBIs.
In other games Saturday in Fairview Heights, Jackson defeated Aviston 7-6, Jackson scored a 4-2 win over Ballwin, Mo., and Ballwin defeated Belleville 6-2.
