DANVILLE — While the date of the division tournament starts earlier this season, the Post 210 Speakers’ goal of winning the tournament has not.
“We are the favorites and the No. 1 seed,” Post 210 coach Brent Hart said. “I feel that the confidence that we are coming in is peaking. everyone is clean and the pitching is pretty good.”
The Speakers finished the regular season over the weekend with a second-place finish in the Crawfordsville tournament. With the division tournament starting today instead of its usual Thursday start date, Hart had to play with the pitching staff carefully at Crawfordsville.
“In Crawfordsville, we had to stack starters just to be ready for Division,” Hart said. “We are built for the postseason and we are going to the postseason every year. It may have cost us in the end in Crawfordsville but we still played good baseball all weekend.
“The final game went extra innings and I stacked (Cam) Harris and (Ryan) Edwards in a game and Bryson Hochens and Cruz Dubois to have pitchers ready for the postseason and that’s the priority for us. We had to keep them in a x amount of pitches in a game and it worked out fine. They got strong innings, but we had extended bullpens. I don’t foresee any issues in division, but you never know and I wanted everyone available.”
Post 210 lost to Byron Cox Post 72 in eight innings on Sunday, 10-8. In that game, the Speakers had 16 hits with Dubois getting three hits and two RBIs, Matt Darling had three hits and one RBI, Houchens and Ben Johnson each had two hits and one RBI, Marvin Davis III had one RBI and Pedro Rangel V had two hits.
I feel the team is swinging very well and we had double digit hits in all but one game,” Hart said. “Against Crawfordsville, we had 17 hits and that’s a lot of hits against great arms.”
In Saturday’s game, the Speakers won 4-0 over the Post 8 Saints from Kentucky. Houchens got the win with five strikeouts in four innings, while Dubois had four strikeouts in four strikeouts.
Dubois had two hits and two RBIs and Easton Barney had two hits and an RBI and Cole Miller had an RBI.
The Speakers are 21-10 and will start the tournament today against either Watseka or Shelby County.
Hart said that the team chemistry should be enough to get through the week and get a chance for the Speakers to defend its state championship next week at Aviston.
“I feel real good where they are at and they play together as a group,” Hart said. “It has been a nice summer coaching these guys. They are a young team and they get along and I look forward to the group next year.”