Imperial lands state Junior Legion baseball tourney

    After traveling hundreds of miles in years past, Imperial landed its first Nebraska American Legion Baseball Association state tournament.
    Imperial and its Campbell Field will host the Class C double-elimination junior tournament July 15-19.
    Tournament director Carl Zuege said hosting state wasn’t something they really planned on.
    Brad Moline filled out the application for the tournament, with he and local coaches hoping Imperial would get the senior district tournament, Zuege said.
    In a second round of applications from Imperial, it was decided to “check all the boxes” for both junior and senior district and state tourneys.
    Bruce Peterson, who will return as Legion head coach this season, said they learned officially last week Imperial landed the state junior tournament.
    Eight teams will qualify for the state tourney, and as the tournament host, Imperial will earn an automatic berth no matter how they finish at districts.
    However, Peterson has higher goals.
    “We don’t want to be just an automatic qualifier. I want to win districts (again),” he said.
    After hosting and winning 2022 districts in Imperial last summer, Imperial advanced to the state tournament in Creighton and finished as Class C runner-up, losing a 6-0 championship game to Malcolm.
    Imperial’s juniors have had a pretty good run in recent years at districts, and ended last year’s season at 26-5.    
    Zuege, also a past assistant coach, said Imperial’s juniors have won five of the last six district tourneys.
    Peterson said he believes the Imperial juniors will be “as good or better” than last year’s state runner-up team.
    He said early indications show it could be one of his biggest baseball rosters ever.
    If everyone expressing early interest goes out, he will have 31-32 players combined for both the junior and senior teams.
    Eight to nine of them will be true senior age, with the rest in the junior age group.
    Five to six starters on the 2022 junior team will be back, he said, along with “a good first year group” moving up from the Pee Wee program.
    Zuege believes the success of Imperial’s baseball teams the past several years played a big part in Imperial landing the tournament.
    “We’ve been on the state scene several years now so we’ve had some exposure,” Zuege said.
    “Where we’ve traveled so much in the past, it will be nice to see some of those other teams come here,” he added.
    Peterson agreed, noting there’s a lot to organize when a team travels hundreds of miles.
    Zuege hopes to get an organizational meeting scheduled in the coming week to discuss fund-raising and forming committees.
    Some improvements at Campbell Field will also be sought, he said, as they plan for the state tournament. Fencing, dirt and grass top the list he wants to talk to the city officials about.
    Those improvements will need to be done ahead of the regular season starting in late May, he said.
    Peterson said the community has been very generous in support of Imperial’s Legion baseball program, as they’ve traveled for post-season tournaments in the past.
    He doesn’t expect that to change as Imperial hosts the state tourney.