Blissfield falls in Class AA American Legion baseball final
The three Lenawee County teams competing in the American Legion state tournament have been eliminated and are headed home after a summer of baseball.
Blissfield Post 325 missed advancing in the Class AA tournament in Mount Pleasant after eliminating Adrian Post 275. Clinton Post 176 picked up a win at Trenton in the Class A tournament before seeing its season come to a close.
“We were six outs away from advancing,” said Blissfield coach Matt Jones. “We had a great year. We played well.”
Blissfield lost 10-1 to Midland Berryhill Post 165 in the opener on Thursday.
Brenden Holland went 4 2/3 innings and striking out two. Blissfield hitters were silenced being held to two hits.
Adrian Post 275 reached the state tournament when the Detroit-area didn’t have a qualifier from its Zone Tournament. They lost 5-0 to Gladwin Post 171 and 7-1 to Blissfield.
Napoleon’s Grant Bradley pitched in the opener and Sean Parker and Jaret Alcock shared mound duties in the loss to Adrian.
Chase Molnar, a Siena Heights University pitcher, was on the hill for Blissfield. He went the distance, giving up three hits. Jack Nigh and Matthew Atkinson had two hits each and Gavin Gelso had three RBIs for Blissfield.
Blissfield followed the win with another, a 4-0 victory against host Mount Pleasant Post 110. Blissfield’s Ethan Stines had two RBIs and Cole Giesige (Whiteford) hurled the complete game shut out with 11 strikeouts.
In its last game, Blissfield lost 6-4 to Gladwin Post 171 in the championship game. Cole Crouch (Whiteford) and Nigh (Bedford) pitched three innings each. Nigh had two hits and Thomas Huss (Bedford) drove in two runs.
Jones said Blissfield had a 3-0 lead after Huss hit a home run and took the lead again in the fifth on a Gabe Jones sacrifice fly, but couldn’t hold the lead.
“It was a really great tournament,” Jones said. “We have nothing to be ashamed of. Those teams are really good. Gladwin and Midland have a lot of Division 1 kids.”
Blissfield finished the summer 31-12.
“Eleven of our kids are eligible to come back,” Jones said. “Hopefully they got better and learned some things for next year.”
Clinton started out its Class A tournament with Ethan Herington (Clinton) going the distance in a 13-3 win over Gladstone Post 71. After the win, Clinton lost back-to-back games to Escanaba and Trenton, 6-3.
Trenton won the championship by beating Escanaba.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Blissfield Post 325 falls in Class AA American Legion Michigan state final
