Seniors fall in opening round of state tournament

July 27--OMAHA -- The Columbus Cornerstone Insurance Group Seniors American Legion baseball team had no answer for Millard West's two, three and four hitters in the opening-round of the Nebraska American Legion State Tournament in Omaha Saturday.

Joe Charvat, Cole Stobbe and Phi Ehly went a combined 7-for-10 from the plate with eight runs and seven RBIs in the 12-3 win over Columbus.

"Sometimes it's tempting to get into a situation where you try to make a perfect pitch against a guy like that and there's no such thing," Columbus head coach Tom Keiser said. "You have to throw it across the plate and you have to try to get guys out and you have to challenge them and make them beat you one-on-one. I thought later in the game we started dancing around those guys too much.

Stobbe reached base and scored in all five plate appearances, while Charvat scored twice and brought home one and Ehly knocked home six runs and scored once for the Millard West Roof Tech Wildcats.

"I thought we nibbled on the corners of the plate and got behind in the count and had to throw it across the plate," Kesier said. "When you throw it across the plate and they know it's coming, bad things are going to happen. I thought we did a good job attacking their hitters the first couple of times through, but later in the game, we kind of let our guard down a little there."

On the mound, Cole Johnston kept the Columbus Seniors off-balance most of the game, throwing five and a third innings, striking out seven and allowing two runs to earn the win for Millard West.

"When you get to Day 1, you're going to see the aces," Keiser said. "We saw what we know as their top two guys, so we feel really good about how we competed as a young group out there against two old pitchers who really know what the heck they're doing."

After Millard West built a 6-0 lead, Columbus finally broke through against Johnston in the sixth inning.

Nathan Sliva (2-for-5) singled to center and Tyler Morton (1-for-3) was hit by a pitch to reach base. Then, Miles Putnam (1-for-3) launched a single to left field, scoring both runs, closing Millard West's lead to five runs.

"I thought that was very much the result of the good at bats we had been putting through," Keiser explained. "Miles and the other guys in the lineup had been grinding through those first couple of times through. He was comfortable and he felt like he was going to get a pitch to hit and he really did a nice job of handling it."

Millard West continued to power away, opening up a five-run seventh that nearly ended the game early.

Raymond Koch, Stobbe, Ehly, Austin Anderson and Matt Eardensohn each scored in the seventh, building an 11-2 lead for Millard West.

Logan Jacik came in to relieve Johnston, limiting Columbus to only one more run the rest of the way.

"You only end up with three runs to show for it, but I felt good with what we did offensively," Keiser said. "We competed in the box against some really good pitchers. We just needed to clean up some things, and play better defensively, then I think it's a totally different game."

For Columbus, Tyler Morton threw six innings, allowing six runs in his longest outing of the season.

"We've been working him up, building him up slowly through the season," Keiser said. "He looked real good. He really honed in on his fastball, but especially late in the game I thought his off-speed stuff was really good. The best part about Tyler though is he's not happy with what happened. That's encouraging. He's not happy because we didn't get a W. Our team has that same mentality and thats a good sign for us going forward."

Columbus will play today against the loser of the KB Building Services and Pinnacle Bank game, which was not concluded by the time of press.

American Legion State Tournament

Saturday at Omaha

Columbus (11-18) 000 002 010 -- 3 7 2

Millard West 103 020 51X -- 12 12 1

-- Pitching: WP- Cole Johnson; LP --

-- Columbus Leading Hitters: Nathan Sliva 2-5, run; Miles Putnam 1-3, two RBI; Morton 1-3, two runs; Blake Bubak 1-3; Cade Hansen 1-3; Tucker Ramaekers 1-4

-- Millard West Leading Hitters: Phil Ehly 3-3, 6 RBI, run; Joe Charvat 2-3, 2 runs, RBI; Cole Stobbe 2-4, 5 runs; Austin Anderson 1-3, run; Matt Eardensohn 1-5, run, RBI; Jake Kistaitis 1-5, RBI; Kaden Keplinger 1-4; Grant McCreedy 0-1, RBI; Joey Koca 0-2, run; Sam Brunswick 0-3, RBI

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