Marietta infielders get under an infield popup during a district tournament game against St. Clairsville Friday. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

BEVERLY – There are dozens and dozens of ways to lose a baseball game but losing one on a walk-off balk has to rank up there with the most heart-breaking.

Such was the case for Marietta Post 64 Friday as they dropped a 4-3 decision to St. Clairsville Post 159 in a winner’s bracket championship game in the American Legion District Tourney at Fort Frye High School.

The loss drops Marietta into the loser’s bracket and into an elimination game Saturday afternoon against Beverly/Lowell.

“We competed and we battled and we took the lead there in the sixth so we had to believe we were going to win that game,” said Marietta head coach Chad Porter. “We allowed them to creep back in and that’s just kind of how baseball goes sometimes.”

After playing a near perfect game defensively in Thursday night’s win over Cambridge/Belle Valley, Post 64 got off to a rough start as St. Clairsville took an early 1-0 lead.

Lead-off man Aydan Murray reached on an error to open the game and moved all the way to third on a throwing error on a pick-off attempt at first by Post 64 starting pitcher Cooper Laumann.

One out later shortstop Brody Saunders plated Murray on an infield ground out to shortstop to give St. Clairsville a 1-0 advantage.

After the rough beginning Laumann settled in nicely on the mound as the lefty retired 13 in a row to buy some time for the Post 64 offense to come to life.

Marietta finally broke through against St. Clairsville starting pitcher Sylus Hyde in the top of the fourth inning as third baseman Logan Fling led off with a single and eventually crossed the plate when catcher Brandon Cline was hit by a pitch with the bases load.

Post 64 took their first lead of the game in the top of the sixth and once again it was Fling right in the middle of the rally.

After his foul ball pop-up was misplayed down the left field line, Fling took advantage of his second chance when he doubled off the base of the fence in deep left field off of Post 159 reliever Dylan Blon.

One out later Fling came around to score on a fielding error to give Post 64 the lead.

Post 64 added another run when pinch hitter Landon Utt delivered a sacrifice fly to right field.

After pitching four straight perfect innings of baseball heading into the later innings Laumann ran into a bit of trouble in the sixth.

He had his streak of 13 hitters in a row broken when he walked Caleb Powell to begin the inning.

The Marietta lefty retired the next two hitters but shortstop Brody Saunders singled to extend the inning to bring the dangerous Peyton Blue to the plate.

Blue jumped all over the first pitch he saw from Laumann and doubled into left-center field allowing both runners to score to tie the game at 3-3.

Blon did his job on the mound as he retired the Marietta team in order in the top of the seventh giving St. Clairsville the chance for a walk-off win.

The St. Clairsville reliever did some damage at the plate as well as he singled to begin the inning.

Blon moved to second base on a sacrifice bunt by Hyde who was safe at first when Laumann was unable to cleanly field the bunt.

Marietta took a giant step into somehow escaping the threat when Laumann induced pinch-hitter Coby Carver to bounce into a double play leaving them one out away from taking the game into extra innings.

Powell stepped to the plate and had two strikes on him when the unthinkable happened to Post 64.

As Laumann started into his motion, Powell took his right hand off of his bat to ask for a timeout only to be denied by the home plate umpire.

That scenario appeared to possibly confuse Laumann on the mound as he came to a stop on the rubber after already beginning his pitching motion and was called for a balk allowing Blon to walk in with the game-winning run.

Laumann was the tough luck loser as he allowed just four hits and a pair of earned runs over his 6 2-3 innings of work.

“Cooper Laumann battled like crazy all day long and pitched a great game,” said Porter. “We competed like crazy and I’m proud of the way are kids fought.”

Marietta has absolutely no time to lick their wounds as they get right back into action this afternoon when they take on Beverly/Lowell in an elimination game at 1 p.m.

“We’ve got to bounce back…. That whole situation is over and done and if we want our season to continue then we have to literally forget about it,” said Porter. “Our kids put our team in position to win the game and at the end of the day it didn’t happen and we just have to jump back on the horse tomorrow and keep our season going.”