The Warner-Ipswich-Northwestern Junior Legion baseball team finished 1-2 in its three outcomes at the State B Junior Legion Baseball Tournament hosted by Winner on August 3-5. That landed W-I-N into fourth place in the weekend event.

The W-I-N team got off to a great start by blanking Clark 10-0 in the regulation seven innings last Friday. It all started with a second-inning RBI single from Eric Severson with runners on second and third. Josh McQuarie had led off the inning with a single, stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch after Will Nilsson had walked.

And five more W-I-N runners would cross home plate during the productive inning! Our area team then added a solo run in the sixth and three more runs in the top of the seventh. They did all that with 12 hits. Kyle Stahl led the effort with three hits and Ethan Gilbert and Nilsson each added two hits to the cause.

Meanwhile, Ben Fischbach, Gilbert and McQuarie combined for a two-hit pitching shutout. The W-I-N team also played nearly flawless defense with only one error, while Clark committed six.

That pitted W-I-N against last year's champion Lennox during a Saturday semifinal in Winner. And the local favorites were definitely in the hunt, tying Lennox 9-9 after the regulation seven innings. But Lennox came up with four runs in the top half of the eighth and staved off W-I-N in its last bat for a hard-fought 13-9 victory.

W-I-N Junior Legion team

Lennox utilized 14 hits, while yielding 10. (And W-I-N committed six errors, compared to Lennox's three.) Sawyer Stroschein led W-I-N's batting effort with three hits.

Groton and W-I-N then vied for third in the tourney on Sunday and Groton rose to the occasion with a 11-1 win, needing just five innings. The W.I.N batters were limited to two hits, while Groton crashed out 10. And Groton committed two errors, while W-I-N sustained five miscues.

The W-I-N team did win the Sportsmanship Award.

Lennox defended its 2017 championship with an 8-2 championship win over Redfield.