COULEE CITY – The Almira/Coulee-Hartline Legion 18u (16-13) baseball team concluded the summer season in the state tournament at Shade Park’s Ron Brooks Field. The team entered as the fifth seed in the tournament and took two losses over the weekend. 

“It just didn’t turn out like we thought,” said ACH head coach Mike Correia. 

ACH's first game of the state tournament was on Saturday against Yakima Valley Peppers 17u, who were the defending champions from last year. He said the team had a strong start, earning a four-run lead in the first inning. 

Max Grindy started on the mound for ACH, pitching for one and a third innings, where he earned one strikeout. Correia said in the second inning, Grindy started having some issues with his shoulder.  

“He was rolling through the first inning, and we had to pull him and then the wheels just slowly fell off,” said the coach. “You can’t give an inch to a team like that, and we gave them multiple inches.” 

Yakima Valley earned five runs in the second, two runs in the third and fourth innings each and another five runs in the sixth. ACH was unable to earn any further runs after the first inning, ending the game with a final score of 4-14. 

“It’s just stuff that we’ve been fighting all year between injuries and guys being sore and hurt,” said Correia. “Even having a week off, we still had some guys dinged up and they gave what they could.” 

Going into Sunday’s game against the Mead Panthers AA team, Correia said the goal was to line the team's pitching up to be healthy enough to play another game.  

“Coming into Sunday, I felt pretty confident with our pitching,” he said. 

The Mead Panthers came up with a 4-0 lead over ACH in the first inning and added onto their lead with a run in the third and five more in the fourth to end the game at the top of the fifth with a 0-10 loss for the Legion team. Correia said the Mead pitcher was their biggest challenge, as he prevented ACH from responding. 

“Oftentimes when you face really good pitchers, usually when you’re going to get to them is in that first inning,” he said. “If you let a guy like that wiggle off the hook in that first inning and he gets a chance to settle down, you’re in trouble and we were, he no-hit us through six innings until Kason Pryor finally broke it up with a base hit.” 

Corriea said ACH also had a missed opportunity in the first inning that would go on to hurt them in the end. The team had the bases loaded with no outs and were unable to score. 

“We just couldn’t get anything going and they did,” said the coach. “They just started putting some balls in play and pretty soon the flood gates open and things don’t turn out the way you wanted them to turn out.” 

With the season ending, Correia reflected on ACH’s summer and said that while the team didn’t reach some of the goals that he had in mind for the year, he is still happy that the team persevered through the obstacles that came up throughout the regular season. Players had to play in many different positions to accommodate injury and for teammates who were unable to attend games due to prior commitments. 

“I was proud of the guys’ willingness to do whatever it took to help the team and to overcome those things and to still show up and play hard all the time,” he said. 

ACH Legion will be losing two players after this season, with Carter Pitts and Grayson Beal graduating from high school earlier this summer and moving on to college in the fall. The coach said neither are continuing with athletics at the collegiate level. 

“I think they know going forward there’s other things in life and they’ve put a lot into these athletic teams here,” said Correia. “They’ve done their part and done it well.” 

Correia said the remainder of the team is still in high school and will be returning for the next season. The coach said the majority of the players are three-sport athletes, which means that now that summer baseball is over, they have less than a month before training for fall sports begins. 

“It just kind of never stops for them,” said Correia. “For us here at ACH, the kids that play here, they’re pretty fortunate to live in a community that supports them the way they do and we’re fortunate to be able to have kids that are good to coach and are as successful on the court or field as they are in the classroom.” 

    ACH pitcher Max Grindy pitches during a game earlier this season. Grindy started on the mound for ACH during their first game of the weekend but had to be taken out due to a pain in his shoulder.
  

    Kaysen Pryor steps up to bat during a game earlier this season. Pryor led the team with one hit at bat during the team’s game against the Mead Panthers AA.