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American Legion: Not In The Cards

The task was daunting.

Harrisburg American Legion Post 167 had to knock off Metropolis twice Monday to repeat as 24th District Champions.

The Achilles Heel of Harrisburg in the district tournament has been its inability to produce on offense and errors in the field. The two-headed monster presented itself again Wednesday in a 4-2 loss to Metropolis.

The silver lining in what turned out to be a dark day because of Mother Nature is the fact that Harrisburg will still move on to the 5th Division Tournament, starting Monday at West Frankfort.

Because of Mother Nature, the wind was howling in left field early in the game and allowed Metropolis Post 306 to put up a four spot because of a couple of hard hit balls that were tough on the Harrisburg outfield.

Metropolis head coach and 1987 graduate of Harrisburg High School, Bobby Simpson took no solace in beating his alma mater, but knew his squad was going to have to put the pressure on Harrisburg in the early going.

"That has a lot to do with (Harrisburg starting pitcher) Bryce Emery," Simpson said. "We knew he was going to be tough once he settles into the ballgame and that slider is something that will keep us off balance."

Emery took the loss as he went the distance. Emery allowed four runs on four hits, while striking out nine and walked one.

Emery's father and Post 167 head coach Doug Emery felt his son did just enough to get the win.

"Bryce pitched really well for us, I thought. Good enough to win, but we didn't get our offense going and didn't make the plays in the first inning. We just couldn't bounce back from that."

Harrisburg Post 167 outhit Metropolis 8-4 Wednesday, but left six runners on base, three of which came with a bases loaded situation in the top of the fifth when Harrisburg was only able to manufacture one run to cut the deficit to 4-2.

Presley Gauch led the inning off with a single and was replaced by Josh Pilkington has a pinch runner. Following a fly out by Jordan Gould, Austin Hefner singled into centerfield and Bryce Emery's attempt at putting down a bunt, forced Pilkington out at third. Noah Vallette then smacked an RBI single to score Hefner and Patrick Bittle singled to load the bases, but Britton Riden's ground out to second ended the scoring threat.

After Post 306's four-run first inning, Harrisburg managed one run of its own when Gauch ripped a shot to straight away center to score Riden, who led the inning off with a double to left field. But with just one out and two on for Post 167, Gould lined out to second and doubled up Drew Woolcott at third.

"We just had a bad start the first inning," Emery said. "Truthfully, we didn't play that well up here in any game, but hopefully that will turn around next week for us."

Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Harrisburg Daily Register. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.