Beverly/Lowell Post 389/750 captured the district championship Sunday at Premiere Field in St. Clairsville. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

ST. CLAIRSVILLE – Beverly/Lowell Post 389/750 erupted for six runs in the sixth inning and went on to down Marietta Post 64 9-3 to claim the 2025 Ohio American Legion Region 4 District Championship Sunday afternoon at Premiere Fields in St. Clairsville.

The Boys of Summer struggled all day long to score runs despite having numerous opportunities to do so before finally coming off the mat to secure their 17th District Championship.

“It wasn’t easy by any means and I’m proud of the effort and how much work our kids put into making this happen,” said Beverly/Lowell head coach Todd Engle. “It never gets old that’s for sure.”

After making their way all the way through the losers bracket of the tournament, Marietta came into Sunday’s contest not only needing to beat Bev/Low once but needing to find a way to get them twice to steal the district title away from them.

In the opener Beverly/Lowell jumped out to an early 1-0 lead thanks to an RBI sacrifice bunt by J.R. Curry in the first inning .

Post 64 got that run back in the bottom of the third inning when center-fielder Will Tornes connected on a fastball from Beverly/Lowell starting pitcher Grady Hesson and deposited it over the right field fence for his third home run of the district tournament.

Tornes is not known for his power but the Marietta Tiger got going at the perfect time for head coach Chad Porter and the Post 64 team.

“Will (Tornes) is a kid that loves the game, plays hard and just competes like crazy,” said Porter. “He plays the game the right way and he got hot at the right time for us.”

Marietta started Tate Jonas on the mound and he held a usually potent Beverly/Lowell offense in check over the first four innings of the game.

After allowing the first inning run Jonas found a way to put up scoreless inning after inning despite finding himself in trouble in almost every frame.

B/L left a pair of base runners stranded in the second and fifth innings and failed to capitalize on a bases loaded, fourth inning as well.

Marietta played a bit of small-ball in the top of the sixth to take the lead.

Tornes got things started by drawing a walk and moved into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt by Gavin Fling.

Cooper Laumann’s tapper back to the mound was fielded by Hesson who retired Laumann at first but some heads-up base-running by Tornes allowed him to move to third base.

Post 64 right fielder Braun Doak then came through with a clutch opposite-field base hit to score Tornes with the go-ahead run.

Jonas put together perhaps his best inning of the game as he retired B/L in order in the bottom of the sixth.

Marietta added three insurance runs in the top of the seventh thanks to an RBI single by Jacob Sealey and a two-run hit by Gavin Fling to increase their lead to 5-1 heading to the bottom of the seventh.

Beverly/Lowell managed to load the bases in the final frame but Jonas once again found a way to survive as he got Owen McCoy to hit a long fly ball to left field that Gavin Fling hauled in for the final out.

Beverly/Lowell stranded 11 base runners in the first game.

The Boys of Summer reached base 10 times by either a walk or base on balls and managed to score just one of those base runners.

“We are walking away happy that we are district champs but thinking we left a small army of runners on base and usually that doesn’t happen,” said Engle. “We’ve got to do a better job of situational hitting for sure.”

After having to secure four wins in 48 hours to advance to championship Sunday, that amount of innings took a toll on the Post 64 pitching staff and Porter handed the ball to young Casey Burkhammer in the second game.

With a much fresher group of arms at his disposal, Engle gave the nod to former Morgan left hander Witten Schaad, affectionately known as “The Big Nasty” by his teammates.

Shaad would live up to that nickname early on as he fanned five of the first six batters he faced.

Post 389/750 scored an unearned run off of Burkhammer in the top of the second to take the early lead.

Clayton Miller reached base on an error and stole second.

The former Fort Frye Cadet speedster attempted to steal third and Marietta catcher Brandon’s Cline’s throw appeared to bounce off of Miller’s helmet and roll into left field allowing him to score the first run of the game.

Beverly/Lowell would add to that lead an inning later when Easton Walker singled and then came all the way around to score when first baseman Kainan Bradford doubled to the fence in deep right-center field.

Marietta got one of those runs back in the bottom of the third as Logan Fling was hit by a pitch, moved to second on a passed ball and scored when Sealey came through with an RBI single to cut the lead in half.

Much like the first game, Bev/Low had plenty of opportunities to put together a big inning but each time Marietta found a way to avoid disaster.

In the top of the fourth Beverly/Lowell stranded a pair of runners that reached via a base on balls.

All told in the two games Beverly/Lowell hitters were hit by a pitch an astounding 13 times including a lead-off plunking of Walker by Burkhammer to begin the fifth inning.

Marietta came up with a huge defensive play when Bradford drilled another shot into the gap in right center field that went all the way to the fence.

Doak quickly fired the ball back to the infield to Sealey whose relay throw to the plate was perfect as Cline tagged out Walker to save a run.

Burkhammer then walked Curry and Hesson to load the bases and Porter elected to bring in Warren’s Saban Jonas in relief.

Marietta got a huge break when Clayton Miller’s line drive was snagged by Logan Fling at third who alertly fired the ball to second to double Curry up to end the inning and keep it a one-run ball game.

Post 64 managed to tie things up in the bottom of the fifth when Logan Fling walked, moved to third on a single by Tornes and scored when Shaad threw a wild pitch allowing Fling to score on a head-first slide.

Saban Jonas went back onto the bump for Post 64 but was quickly pulled after hitting Jack McCurdy to begin the inning and then walking right fielder Kyler Starr.

Logan Fling was brought in to relieve Jonas and Cameron Sidwell bunted both runners over and into scoring position.

Carter Wheeldin then hit a shot up the middle that Saban Jonas made a nice diving play on but his throw to first was wild allowing McCurdy to score the go-ahead run.

Starr tried to score on the play as well but Post 64 first baseman Cooper Laumann alertly played the carom off of the Marietta dugout and fired a strike to Cline at the plate who tagged out Starr on a bang-bang play at the dish.

Unfortunately that would be the last positive to happen for the Post 64 squad as the next seven BevLow hitters would reach base to blow things wide open.

Bradford and Starr would deliver RBI base hits while Walker, Hesson, Miller and McCurdy would pick up RBI’s by either the walk or a hit by pitch.

Ultimately the Marietta pitching staff had simply run out of steam.

“Casey did a great job but we knew we were getting kind of thin after all of these games,” said Porter. “Our kids competed and I tip my hat to them but we just kind of ran out of gas there.”

Shaad threw a perfect sixth inning and after Beverly/Lowell added an insurance run in the top of the seventh Walker came on in relief in the bottom of the seventh to close things out.

Cline greeted Walker with a solo home run to left-center field but Walker retired the final three hitters to seal the deal for Beverly/Lowell.

Second baseman Cameron Sidwell robbed Tornes of a base hit with a leaping catch of his line drive for the final out as the Beverly Lowell players raced on to the field to celebrate yet another District title.

Engle was quite pleased with the job Shaad did on the mound for his team in the finale.

“He was a kid that was kind of on the fence whether he was going to play this summer,” said Engle of Schaad who fanned 12 in his six innings on the bump. “I’m so happy for him because he’s such a good kid.”

Porter had nothing but praise for the effort his team put forth after falling into the loser’s bracket on Thursday and fighting all the way back.

“I’m extremely proud of our players… we just kept fighting and fighting and wouldn’t give in,” said Porter, “They fought and they fought and they fought and I can’t stress enough how proud I am of them.”

Fortunately for Marietta all is not lost as this year the runner-ups in the District tournament also advance to Lancaster to participate in a play-in game to kick off the state tournament.

“We need to take all the positives from this weekend and have a good week of practice and get after them on Friday night,” said Porter, whose team carries a 31-13 record into Lancaster.

Engle had high praise for the Marietta team and won’t be surprised if they might see them again before the season is over

“Marietta is playing really well and playing with a lot of confidence and they kind of ran thin on pitching after playing six games in four days,” said Engle, whose squad improved to 24-11 with the win. “We’ve got all the respect in the world for that outfit and we are probably not done seeing them.”

Both teams had a lot of fans make the trip to St. Clairsville, showing their support for a couple of outstanding teams from Washington County.

“It was great to see so much support up here today from our fans and their fans,” said Engle. “They saw two teams that were pretty well even competing all day long. I think Washington County was very well represented today.”