LANCASTER - Lima scored three times in the bottom of the seventh inning and held on for a 7-5 victory over Steubenville Post 33 Tuesday night at Beavrs Field Ohio American Legion State Baseball Tournament.
Post 33 meets Sandusky at 10 a.m. today in the double-elimination tournament. Sandusky won twice Tuesday, beating Wayne County (25-20) and Strongsville (12-10). A win gives Steubenville a 4 p.m. game at Beavers Field against winner of the 1 p.m. game between Pickerington and Whitehouse.
"We struggled to get frive hits last night and got 10 hits tonight, that's just not enough for nine innings," said Post 33 coach Mark Stacy. "The bottom line tonight is they got the big hit when they got guys on base and we didn't. That's what it really came down to. They got big two-out hits and extra base hits and we didn't.
"I thought we played hard fromn start to finish. It's really a hard game for me to get my mind around.
"They did a better job of two-out hitting and that was the difference in the game. They deserved to win."
Lima, which takes on Troy at 7 p.m. today for a berth in the finals, had two-out doubles in the second and eighth innings and a two-out double in the fifth.
It scored three times in the bottom of the seventh to take a 6-3 lead when the first two batters were hit by pitches and those were followed by a double, single and double.
Brenton Colabella singled in Alex Young and Aleks Porreca singled in Jim Panella and Colabella in the fourth inning as Post 33 took a 3-2 lead.
With one out in the top of the eighth inning, Young walked, Panella doubled, putting runners on second and third. A Colabella groundout scored Young and Panella came home when Josh Malesky reached on an error.
Steubenville received two-out singles by Justin Corsi and JoJo Pierro in the top of the ninth, but were left stranded.
"We are just as proud of our kids tonight as we were last night," said Stacy. "We now have a lot of work to do."
Lima 7, Steubenville 5
Steubenville 000 300 020 - 5 10 1
Lima 020 010 31x - 7 11 2
STEUBENVILLE: Panella (LP, 5K, 3BB), Malesky (7, 1K, 0BB) and McClurg; Panella D; J. Pierro 2S; Young S; Colabella 2S, 2rbi; Pierro S; Porreca S, 2rbi; McClurg S; Corsi S.
LIMA: Sanders (WP, 5K, 1BB), Youngpeter (9, 1K, 0BB) and Rieman; Hampshire T, D, 2rbi; Spencer D, S, rbi; Martz D, rbi; Runneals D, S, rbi; Altenbach S; Sanders 2S.
