Iola’s AA American Legion Post 15 baseball team hopes to keep the momentum going into the AA Zone Tournament next week in Burlington. After winning the KABA Upper Division League Tournament, the Indians are looking to move through the Zone Tournament and qualify for state.
“We’re just practicing, hitting, fielding, staying busy,” coach Roland Weir said. “The routine, we don’t have any warm-up games or tune-up games so we’re just staying busy.”
With a 29-3 record, the team took first place in the regular season standings.
“I think the kids have achieved everything that we’ve set goals for,” Weir said. “We set a goal to win league this year and this is the first time that an Iola team has won the league tournament in four or five years, so that’s a big plus. We’ve finished first in league the last few years. We accomplished that.”
They still have a couple more goals to go.
“The next goal is to go to the Zone Tournament and win that to go to state and take it from there,” Weir said.
During the league tournament, the Indians won all three of their games. The final game ended with a walk-off homer coming off the bat of Jacob Carpenter to win the game in the bottom of the eighth inning. It was the second game-winning home run the team has had this season.
Derrick Weir hit a 2-run home run to beat Fort Scott in the top of the tenth on June 26. Weir’s homer may not have walked-off with the game, but it swayed the momentum toward Iola who went on to win the next game 5-0.
The season has gone well for the Indians, but there is always room for improvement.
“You always want to get better,” Weir said. “Our pitching has been there all season long, it’s been steady, it’s going to keep us in ball games. Our defense is going to be there. You’ll have your occasional letdowns, but (our fielding) has been steady for us. I’d like to see our hitting just get better and better.”
The AA Zone Tournament will be double elimination format. Iola will take on the winner of Wellsville versus West Franklin on Wednesday at 8 p.m.
Indians look for continued success at AA Zone Tourney
