The Wakefield Post 81 Junior and Senior Legion Baseball teams competed in the 2021 edition of the Max "Bud" Greve Wooden Bat Tournament in Wakefield and Wayne this past weekend.
Pool play games were played in Wakefield at Eaton Field and at Hank Overin Field in Wayne with the Junior and Senior finals played in Wakefield.
Unfortunately, out-of-towners played in the finals with Wahoo sweeping the titles over Lennox of South Dakota to head back south with all of the championship hardware.
"Our seniors were right there for a chance in the finals," Post 81 coach Julio Sanchez said. "We just fell a little short."
It appeared Wakefield would fall more than a little short in the final pool-play game on Sunday.
Post 81 trailed 7-0 heading to the third inning before Wakefield fashioned a comeback and forced the game into extra innings.
"I told the guys to just keep battling and competing," Sanchez said. "They certainly didn't quit."
In that final game, Lennox ran out to a 7-0 lead heading into the fourth.
Wakefield began nibbling away at the lead from there.
Dillon Borg opened the fourth with a single for Wakefield before Nate Oswald got aboard with another hit and a single by Blake Brown chased home Borg and Oswald.
Brown would eventually score in the frame to make it 7-3.
Wakefield would add five runs in the fifth from Brown, Salmon, Borg, Lucas Oswald and Nate Oswald.
Nate Oswald would score again in the extra session, but Lennox came away with the 11-10 win.
Earlier in the tourney, Post 81 defeated Wisner 6-3.
"We didn't play very well that first game," Sanchez said. "But we played well enough to win."
Wakefield scored six in the opening inning, in fact the first six batters scored to stake a lead Wakefield would never relinquish.
Salmon, Sam Nuno, Mahon, Couy Johnson, Brock Floyd and Cade Johnson crossed the plate in the inning to set the pace for Post 81.
Wisner did score a couple of runs but the damage was done as Wakefield posted the win.
The Wakefield Juniors lost a pair of games in the tournament to Bruning-Davenport-Shickley 9-3 in the opening round and 12-0 to Beresford, South Dakota in the second round.
Against BDS, Wakefield came back from a 5-0 deficit with three runs in the fifth.
Cade Johnson, Borg and Gabe Lamprecht scored to make it 5-3 but BDS would plate five in the final inning to take the 10-3 final.
Beresford put the game out of reach in the opening inning with seven runs and never looked back.
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