HIGHLAND – Regardless of the sport, it’s the little things – the smallest aspect of a game, sometimes called the one-percenters – that sometimes mean everything as far as the outcome of a game.
The Metro East Bears took care of one of the smallest parts of baseball – laying down bunts – to help them to a 5-2 win over Aviston in a winner’s bracket game of the Illinois American Legion Fifth Division tournament at Highland’s Glik Park/Optimist Field Tuesday afternoon. The Bears advanced to a game against host Highland, who defeated Herrin 12-4 Tuesday night, at 7 p.m. today, with the winner moving into Friday’s championship round, which is scheduled for 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. (if necessary) Friday. A loss would force the Bears into a 7 p.m. Thursday loser’s bracket game, with the winner of that game being forced to win twice to move into next week’s state Legion tournament in Rantoul.
“You don’t want to squander any opportunities that you get,” said Bears manager Ken Schaake. “By moving guys to second base, you avoid the double play; these guys I was asking to bunt – I don’t think I’ve asked (Joel) Quirin to bun all year long, same way with (Steven) Pattan, I didn’t ask him to bunt – you’ve got guys usually hitting in the middle of the order, they’re not going to bunt.
“I told the kids we bunted three times and we got three runs out of it, and the final score’s 5-2; the little things made a big difference.”
Storm Coffman went the distance for the Bears, striking out three. “Storm’s a good guy to have out there,” Schaake said. “He comes from a small school (Bunker Hill); things happen behind him and they don’t faze him. He knows something’s going to happen and he has to continue to do his job. We get the first guy out in the seventh inning and we lose a fly ball, we throw a ball away – he hung in there and got two fly balls to left field to end the game.”
The Bears got out of the gates pretty quickly; Dylan Burris led off the game with a walk and was sacrificed to second by Quirin. Blake Vandiver then stepped up to the plate and singled in Burris to put the Bears ahead 1-0; Metro East followed that up with a three-run third, starting with a Quirin walk and steal, Quirin moving to third on a Vandiver single. An error brought in Quirin and allowed Corey Price to reach base. Pattan then sacrificed both over and a Cole Hansel single drove in both Vandiver and Price to get the Bears to a 4-0 lead.
Aviston cut the lead to 4-2 in the bottom of the third, but the Bears remained steady; in the top of the sixth, Will Messer led off with a single and went to second on a Andrew Yancik grounder to the pitcher; an error got Messer to third, Burris reaching base before Quirin lifted a sacrifice fly to right to allow Messer to score and increase the lead to 5-2. Coffman held Aviston at bay the rest of the way to help the Bears advance.
With an excessive heat warning in effect for the remainder of the week, the Bears moving on in the winner’s bracket means a lot. “It’s always nice to get the two wins to stay in the winner’s bracket,” Schaake said. “It does give us potentially a day off if we win tomorrow – we’d get the day off and then come back on Friday for one game or two games while somebody else is going to play two or three in a short period of time.”
Burris had a run scored for the Bears, with Quirin also having a run scored, Vandiver 3-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored, Price 1-for-4 with a RBI and run scored, Hansel 1-for-2 with two RBIs, Tate Wargo 1-for-3 and Messer 1-for-3 with a run scored on the day.
