Legion baseball: Split decision keeps Fox Lake alive in state tourney

It was one down, then one up for Fox Lake as Post 703 stayed alive in the American Legion baseball state tournament Friday in Jerseyville.

Fox Lake, which had won its first two games of the tournament on Wednesday and Thursday, dropped a Friday afternoon game to Danville 7-2.

That moved Fox Lake into the loser's bracket of the double elimination tournament and a date with Quincy, a 16-11 winner over Highland earlier Friday. And Fox Lake (18-3) kept its title hopes alive with a 13-6 win over Quincy on Friday evening.

Post 703 will need to beat Danville (33-4-1), a team on an 18-game winning streak, twice on Saturday in order to win the title.

"Danville is a very good team," Fox Lake coach Brian Talbott said. "But we just have to win one inning at a time. We were hoping to push the season at least one more day and we were able to do that."

After struggling against Danville earlier Friday, Fox Lake came right back just 30 minutes after that game and exploded for 19 hits to move into the final day of the tournament.

Ben Kusiak led the assault with 4 hits while Ray Guardado and Nolan Unger each had a pair of hits as every starter in the Fox Lake lineup had at least one hit. Post 703 also got a strong 7-inning performance from Logan Lewis on the mound.

"We are a tired group right now," said Talbott, whose team will play Danville at 11 a.m. Saturday. "But the guys are having fun playing together."