Takeaways from Galesburg Post 285's loss to East Moline to open the postseason
GALESBURG — The Galesburg American Legion baseball team played in its first postseason game in five years on Monday.
In the summer of 2017, Post 285 announced its program was ending after 62 years, but behind the efforts of Laurie Sykes and Kyle and Kristie Spencer it was rejuvenated.
And Galesburg held an advantage over East Moline Post 227 most of the evening in the 3rd Division outing Monday. However, Post 285 watched its foes rally for a 6-5 victory at Jim Sundberg Field.
Galesburg (20-9) was up 5-1 over East Moline after five innings but then Post 285 starting pitcher Owen Wolfe ran into some trouble. After allowing just an earned run on four hits, striking out two and issuing one walk in the first five frames, Wolfe allowed five runs (four earned) on five hits and walked one in the bottom of the sixth.
Did Post 285 coach Jeremy Kleine leave Wolfe, a righty, who will be a sophomore at Monmouth College this fall, on the hill a bit too long?
"That's a good question," Kleine said. "They got three base hits to start that inning. I think he missed his spots and then I think he was back to hitting his spots and it seemed like to me the strike zone got a little bit smaller.
"I don't want to necessarily blame the ump on this but if it changes, it changes. It had been the same for five innings and all of a sudden it got a little smaller," added Kleine. "It didn't even cross my mind to take Wolfey out. He's a 19-year-old college pitcher. He's a gutty competitor."
Galesburg faces Peoria next
Despite the defeat in its final home game this summer, Galesburg will take the diamond again, as the division tourney is double elimination. Post 285 will face Peoria Post 2 at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Richwoods High School in Peoria in the consolation bracket opener.
"If there's a team that's got enough pitching, hitting and fielding to get it done it would be us," Kleine said of his team's chances. "The game plan is going to be the same. We're going to come out and play hard. We're going to have good pitching going. We're going to make some plays. We're going to hit the ball. We'll do what we have to do to try to produce some runs."
On Monday night, Post 2 suffered a 14-1 five inning loss to Rock Island Post 200, who won its first state championship in 10 years last summer.
Besides East Moline, Galesburg, Rock Island and Peoria, Moline, Oneida and Princeton are partaking in the 3rd Division tournament.
Post 285 still plays 'Jimmy ball'
Kleine, a 1989 Galesburg High School and 1993 Knox College grad, was a member of the Silver Streaks' 1988 AA state championship team. He played a summer of Legion baseball for John Shay in 1987 and then in the summer in 1988 and 1989 for Jimmy Isaacson, who also guided Kleine for four seasons while he played for Knox.
Isaacson's players got on base anyway they could mainly via bunts, always tried to take an extra base and did whatever to put pressure on the defense.
And Post 285 still employs "Jimmy ball." Galesburg's players laid down three bunt singles against East Moline, and Post 285's Thad Morling opened the game with a bunt, and he reached first on an error by Post 227's third baseman.
"Our main goal is to try to get one run an inning, and we ended up with five, so we only missed two innings basically," Kleine said. "We try to put pressure on the other team, and we did that. It got us up to a 5-1 lead, and we had a bad inning and it happens."
Sixth time facing Post 227
Monday's meeting between Galesburg and East Moline was the sixth this summer, and Post 285 held a 4-1 mark against Post 227 beforehand.
Kleine doesn't care how many times he coaches against another squad.
"The pros plays series against each other all the time. The Cubs and Cardinals probably play 20 games a year against each other," he said. "That's the third time we've seen that pitcher. We took it to him and then just all of sudden we had a bad inning, and that's baseball."
By the numbers
Charlie Lardi and Aidan Parkins both went 2-for-3 and scored runs for Galesburg. Kannon Kleine hit a double, had an RBI and scored. Payton Hankins, David Hise, Kyle Shaw and Ben Powell each hit singles. Along with Lardi, Kleine and Parkins, Hise and Morling touched home for Post 285.
Wolfe faced 29 batters, and he threw 95 pitches — 61 were strikes. James Kisler pitched a third of an inning in relief of Wolfe, and the right-hander didn't allow anything but a pop out against the lone batter he faced — East Moline's Kyler Trueblood. He is the son of Ted Trueblood, a 1994 GHS grad who played baseball and basketball for the Streaks and hardball for Post 285.
Matthew Wheaton can be reached at (309) 315-6073 or at mwheaton@register-mail.com. Follow him on Twitter @matthewlwheaton
This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: What happened when Post 285 opened the postseason?
