It’s been another great couple months covering a lot of American Legion baseball again this summer.
Kudos to Coach Kyle Proctor for all the selling he has done, to help bring about 30 games to the area over the radio.
We head to Rockport for the State Finals this weekend, and hopes are high for this talented squad.
They have a 22-10 overall record, and have gone toe-to-toe with a lot of good teams.
In fact, seven of their season opponents are heading to their respective state finals this week, in four different states!
Danville and Rantoul are playing in Illinois. Terre Haute, Princeton, Rockport and Lafayette are in the Indiana finals, and Lexington is in the Kentucky finals.
Talk about good baseball — in the Post 72 Invitational two weekends ago, there were 12 teams entered for pool play and a single-elimination tournament at the end.
Nine of the teams that played here in Crawfordsville all made it to their state finals…
And a tenth team was the defending state champs who did not qualify to defend their title this year.
In addition to the teams listed earlier, the team from North Branch, Michigan has advanced, as well as the squad from Washington, Missouri.
So this Post 72 team has not avoided the good teams.
That experience will be very necessary this weekend in Rockport, where all eight teams have winning records, several are over 20 wins, and Terre Haute stands 31-3 with a handful of wins over the local guys, all but one by a run or two and two in extra innings.
It’s a diverse group, with guys from nine different area high schools.
One thing not diverse — all of these guys come from baseball backgrounds. Lots of them were the best players on their team, plenty were all-conference, and a handful either played college ball last spring or are heading to play college ball next spring.
The Monon Conference is well-represented, with nine players. The old Sagamore Conference has a couple, as does the Wabash River Conference. There is even a player from Clinton Central and McCutcheon. One played in college last spring; five are playing college baseball next spring, including a couple guys going to Wabash.
They have traveled well, going 13-6 in road games (with another win coming at Waynetown). That is also a big factor heading to Rockport, only three and a half hours away. Rockport has only won 11 state championships, and played in the national tournament last season.
There was a 4-0 road swing to Evansville earlier in the summer, with a win over Princeton and Rockport, who are both alive this weekend.
Crawfordsville played Lafayette in their first game on Friday. There is another game on Saturday, and with a win any day, the team advances to the next day. Two losses mean the end of the season and the 3.5-hour drive home.
It is the fifth-straight 20-win season for Coach Proctor, who led the team to a runner-up finish in 2021.
For the stats guys, the team is hitting .281, with six batters over .300. Leading the way is North Montgomery’s Aiden Ambriz-Cruz at .342. Aiden Riser, from McCutcheon and now Huntington University, has a team-best 23 RBI. Greencastle’s Sam Gooch leads the team with 28 runs scored, 21 walks and 17 stolen bases. He is headed to Wabash Valley. Post 72 has 91 steals, a lofty 2.9 swipes per game.
On the mound, North’s Talyn Sheldon has nine appearances. He and Clinton Central’s Dillon Heaton each have six starts (Heaton is headed to Wabash).
Nate Kouns (Lebanon) has the lowest ERA at 0.764 and Kyven Hill (Covington) has four wins. Heaton has the most strikeouts with 32. The staff has 153 whiffs and 101 walks.
For this radio (and sometimes newspaper) guy, there have been a couple of college press boxes, with AC, and there was a game at historic Bosse Field in Evansville, one of the three oldest ball parks in use in America (right behind Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. There were a couple places where I sat out in the sun, and a few games with a couple fans on full speed.
We were blessed with only two rainouts, but yes, there were a couple others delayed. There won’t be rainouts this weekend. It will be wait til it gets dry enough to play.
The state finals are spread over five days. No team plays twice in a day until the last day, and that is only an “if” situation. It can make for a long visit to Rockport.
But we are there, and hopefully there was a win on Friday.
It’s been a lot of fun, and I certainly have to express my thanks to Coach Proctor, the staff and team, plus a lot of opposing coaches who were very helpful during the summer.
Safe travels.
Jeff Nelson is a frequent contributor to the Journal Review and works professionally for Fox Sports working with the Indiana Pacers, Indianapolis Colts and many more professional teams.
